MOSCOW - The Lefortovo District of Moscow has extended the custody period for the Ukrainian film director Oleh Sentsov, charged with plotting terror attacks in Crimea, until April 11, 2015.
The investigators’ request has been granted, a court spokesperson told Interfax on Dec. 26.
Earlier the district court had extended Sentsov’s custody until Jan. 11, 2015.
It was reported that on May 11 Russian police arrested Sentsov in Crimea. It was reported on May 19 that he had been moved to a pre-trial detention facility in Moscow.
On May 30б the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the arrest in Crimea of several members of the Right Sector terrorist group – Oleh Sentsov, Hennadiy Afanasyev, Oleksiy Chyrniho and Oleksandr Kolchenko on suspicion of plotting acts of sabotage and terror attacks in several cities on the peninsula. Later the charges against Afanasyev were heard in a separate trial. The other defendants are held in custody. On Thursday, the court extended the custody terms for Chyrniho and Kolchenko until next April.
According to the FSB, the suspects were plotting “as a terrorist entity to stage explosions in the early hours of May 9, 2014, by using improvised explosive devices near the Eternal Flame memorial and Lenin Monument in Simferopol and torching the offices of the Russian Community of Crimea and the office of the United Russia Party in Simferopol on April 14 and 18, 2014.”
On June 3, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sent a note to the Russian Embassy in Kyiv, asking it to organize a meeting with Sentsov.
On June 11, the European Film Academy asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to clarify the situation around the arrest of the film director. The petition was signed by about 20 show business people, including Agustin and Pedro Almodovars, Andrzei Wajda, Wim Wenders, Krzysztof Zanussi and Daniel Olbrychski.
At the closing ceremony of the 36th Moscow International Film Festival on June 28 the Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov joined the appeal by the chairman of the Filmmakers Union of Ukraine, Serhiy Trymbach, who asked the Russian president to release Sentsov.
