MOSCOW – The Moscow City Court has upheld the extension until the end of April of Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko’s arrest on spying charges in Russia.
“The ruling by Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court on extending the restrictive measure in the form of pretrial custody for the accused Sushchenko until April 30, 2017 shall be upheld and lawyer Feygin’s appeal turned down,” the Moscow City Court said on Feb. 14.
Lawyer Mark Feygin had asked the Moscow City Court to reverse the lower court’s ruling on extending his client’s custody and placing him under house arrest at the Ukrainian embassy’s guesthouse in Moscow.
The court hearing was held behind closed doors since the Sushchenko case has been classified ‘top secret’.
Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court ruled on Jan. 25 to extend Sushchenko’s custody for at least another three months, i.e. until April 30. Sushchenko has been accused of espionage; he has pleaded not guilty. Lawyer Mark Feygin said that his client has been charged on several counts of espionage.
On Oct. 3, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said that “Ukrainian military intelligence career officer Col. Roman Sushchenko was detained in Moscow when gathering intelligence”. The FSB opened a criminal case on espionage charges (Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code).
The lawyer, in turn, said that Sushchenko, who had lived in France for six years as a correspondent of the Ukrinform news agency in Paris, repeatedly visited Russia and stayed there for personal reasons at the time he was detained. His relatives live in Russia.
Official Kyiv called Sushchenko’s arrest a provocation and described the espionage charges as trumped-up. On Nov. 22, Ukrainian Security Service head Vasyl Hrytsak told a briefing conference that Sushchenko had been put on the lists “for exchange of hostages”.
Sushchenko’s defense team is also filing an appeal against his arrest with the European Court of Human Rights.
