MOSCOW, September 10 (Itar-Tass) - Moscow City Court has sentenced a man accused of complicity in plotting an assassination attempt against Russian President Vladimir Putin to a long prison term.
Ilya Pyanzin, a citizen of Kazakhstan, was found guilty and will spend 10 years in a high security prison. Pyanzin concluded a plea bargain with the investigators and received a prison term no greater than two-thirds of the maximum.
The prosecutor had asked the court to sentence Pyanzin to 15 years behind bars.
As an Itar-Tass correspondent reports from the court room, Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk said Pyanzin and his accomplices had been acting on instructions from the head of the illegal militant group Imarat Kavkaz, which planned Putin’s murder out of revenge.
As follows from the sentence, the group’s members spent a while testing explosive devices near Odessa. Their plan was to go to Moscow and blow up a car bomb the moment Putin’s motorcade would be going past. When the bodyguards would try to move Putin to another limousine, another bomb would go off.
According to the sentence the group’s participants held several bomb tests near Odessa. The bombs’ yield and kill proved too low, though. When they were putting together another explosive device, spontaneous detonation occurred. One plotter was killed. Another one was injured and went into hiding. Pyanzin suffered strong burns and was detained by law enforcers at the scene.
Judge Zamashnyuk said in his sentence that Pyanzin had complied with all terms of the plea bargain with the investigation concerning the probe into the assassination attempt plans, as well as the attempt on the life of Chechnya’s head, Ramzan Kadyrov in 2007.
“Pyanzin adhered to the terms of the pre-trial settlement. He also helped solve another crime. The law enforcers are now taking procedural measures against those involved in the later plot,” Zamashyuk said.
Earlier, the prosecutor had asked for sentencing Pyanzin to fifteen years in prison and for prohibit him from leaving the place of residence for another year after he served the prison term. However, the court decided in favor of a milder punishment. Also, the court found it would be wrong to limit Pyanzin’s freedom after he left the prison, because he was a foreign national.
The convict’s lawyer refrained from comment.
Pyanzin has ten days to appeal the sentence.