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Lawyers oppose mental state examination of Ukrainian pilot in reporters’ death case

“There are no grounds for conducting the examination in hospital,” lawyer Mark Feigin told, adding that in this case “Savchenko will be isolated in hospital for a long time, up to one month”

Nadezhda Savchenko ITAR-TASS

Nadezhda Savchenko

VORONEZH, September 01, /ITAR-TASS/. The lawyers of Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko implicated in the killing of Russian journalists contested on Monday the investigators’ decision that requires her to undergo a mental state examination.

“There are no grounds for conducting the examination in hospital,” lawyer Mark Feigin told ITAR-TASS, adding that in this case “Savchenko will be isolated in hospital for a long time, up to one month”.

If the investigators insist on the examination, it can be conducted in an outpatient clinic, the lawyer added.

He insisted that lawyers be allowed to be present during the examination since Savchenko earlier had strongly objected to “any kind of manipulation, including those requiring injections of medicines”.

It was reported earlier that Savchenko could be taken from Voronezh, Central Russia, where she is held in custody, to Moscow for a mental state examination.

In late August, a court in Voronezh extended her custody until October 30. The counsel for the defence contested this ruling.

On July 9, Russia’s Investigative Committee charged Savchenko with being an accomplice in the killing of two Russian VGTRK television company reporters. She was detained in Russia and put in custody.

Investigators say that during armed hostilities in Lugansk in June Savchenko reported the whereabouts of the Russian journalists to gunmen who then fired mortars at the place where the reporters were staying, killing both of them.

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