After a new verdict has been passed to activist Volodymyr Balukh, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine urges to immediately release political prisoners.
“Crimean activist Volodymyr Balukh, on a hunger strike since March, was just sentenced to 5 years in prison on highly questionable charges. Russia must free political prisoners NOW,” the embassy said on Twitter.
As reported, the Russian-controlled Rozdolne District Court in Crimea sentenced Ukrainian activist Volodymyr Balukh to five years in a general-security penal colony and fined him 10,000 rubles (about Hr 4,000).
The activist was sentenced to such a prison term for the aggregate of two criminal cases. The judge said while announcing the verdict that Balukh had committed a crime in connection with “hostility towards the current system of government, as evidenced by earlier committed crimes.”
On July 2, a Russian prosecutor requested four years of imprisonment for Balukh on charges of disrupting the work of the temporary detention facility and, taking into account the first criminal case, six years in a general-security colony and a fine of 10,000 rubles (Hr 4,000).
This case against the activist was opened because of a statement by the head of the temporary detention facility in the village of Rozdolne, Valery Tkachenko, who claims that Balukh had beaten him up. At the same time, the activist himself and his defense team state that it was Tkachenko who attacked him.
Earlier, the court extended the measure of restraint for the Ukrainian activist in the form of detention until August 14.
Balukh continues the indefinite hunger strike, which he declared on March 19, 2018.
