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Suspect in Putin murder plot set free in Ukraine as his prison term ends

Adam Osmayev was accused of plotting to kill Vladimir Putin after presidential election back in 2012

KIEV, November 18. /TASS/. The Odessa court in Ukraine has set free Adam Osmayev, accused of plotting to kill Vladimir Putin after the 2012 presidential election, as his prison term has ended, a court official told Tass on Tuesday.

The man was set free in the courtroom, he said, adding that the time he had spent in pre-detection center was credited toward the total length of sentence.

In 2012, the court found Osmayev guilty of illegal handling of explosives, destruction of somebody else’s property through negligence and forgery, sentencing him to nearly three years in prison.

According to the investigative department of the Ukrainian Security Service which probed into the case, Osmayev arrived in Odessa on forged documents, set up and headed the so-called Imarat Kavkaz extremist group. The group also included Kazakh national Ilya Pyanzin and Chechen-born Ruslan Madayev.

In January 2012, a self-made bomb exploded in the apartment they rented, killing Madayev. Pyanzin was hospitalized with burns, and confessed to a plot to stage terrorist acts in Russia.

The group planned to assassinate Vladimir Putin, who was Prime Minister at that time, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The assassination was planned immediately after the presidential election in Russia in March 2012.

Osmayev was charged under seven articles of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, including the setting up and leadership of the Imarat Kavkaz extremist group, a terrorist act and document forgery.

The group planned to assassinate Putin by exploding a car bomb during the passage of his motorcade. Preparing for their crime in December 2011, they illegally made two cumulative charges for destroying armoured vehicles and tested them in suburban Odessa.