Moscow – The criminal investigation opened against Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, accused by Russia of involvement in the killing of two Russian journalists in eastern Ukraine, has been prolonged until May 13, 2015.
According to an Interfax correspondent, the state prosecutor made this announcement on Tuesday at Moscow’s Basmanny Court, which debated investigators’ request to extend Savchenko’s custodial term by three months.
It was reported earlier that Savchenko fought with the Aidar volunteer battalion in eastern Ukraine. Novorossiya militants captured her in June 2014 near the town of Schastia, a suburb of Luhansk. It was announced on July 8, 2014 that she was kept at a Voronezh pre-trial detention facility in Russia.
The Russian Investigative Committee claimed earlier that Savchenko had crossed the border without documents under the guise of a refugee and been detained later for identification. The identification procedure revealed that she had been suspected of facilitating the murder of Russian TV journalists Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin near Luhansk. On July 9, 2014, Savchenko was indicted as an accomplice to murder.
Savchenko has denied her guilt and claimed that she was abducted from Ukrainian territory.
She was taken to a pre-trial detention center in Moscow on September 24. The Basmanny district court in Moscow ruled on Oct. 27, 2014 that she be kept in custody until Feb. 13, 2015.
Savchenko, who went on hunger strike in mid-December 2014, was elected to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, as a member of the Batkivschyna party led by Yulia Tymoshenko in the snap parliamentary election on Oct. 26, 2014.
