All news

Kazakh citizen imprisoned for plotting conspiracy to assassinate Putin asks for pardon

The request will be considered on July 27

SAMARA, July 11. /TASS/. Kazakh national Ilya Pyanzin, who was jailed in 2013 for plotting to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, and is serving out his 10-year sentence in western Russia’s Samara Region, has filed for a pardon.

The local clemency review board, overseen by the governor of the Samara Region, is due to consider the request in late July, the press service of the regional government told TASS on Tuesday.

"Pyanzin’s pardon request has been submitted to the committee on clemency matters supervised by the governor of the Samara Region. The request will be considered on July 27," the press service said.

The Kazakh national is serving his prison sentence at maximum security correctional facility number 26 in the Samara Region. The Moscow City Court ruled to sentence Pyanzin to 10 years in prison, and he has already spent 5 years and 5 months behind bars.

Under Russian law, the committee should announce its conclusions recommending whether to pardon the convict or reject his request. After that the governor should sent the Russian president his view on whether the pardon is advisable or not.

Conspiracy to kill Putin

On September 10, 2013 the Moscow City Court sentenced Pyanzin to 10 years in jail, finding him guilty of plotting Putin’s attempted assassination. The Kazakh citizen had pleaded guilty and copped a plea bargain with police in exchange for a lighter sentence, that is not more than two-thirds of a maximum term.

Investigators found out that while staying in Ukraine in December 2011 Pyanzin accepted an offer by Chechen nationals Adam Osmayev and Ruslan Madayev to join an armed group set up on the order of Doku Umarov, the late leader of the Imarat Kavkaz (Caucasus Emirate) terrorist organization.

The assassination was planned to be carried out in Moscow by detonating a car traveling along the route of Putin’s motorcade.

The criminal gang had tested explosives in Ukraine’s port city of Odessa. On January 4, 2012 a fire broke out when a self-made explosive device that was being manufactured burst into flames. Madayev was killed in the blaze, and Pyanzin and Osmayev were detained by Ukrainian law enforcement agents. Later, Pyanzin was handed over to Russia at the request of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office.