SIMFEROPOL, February 16. /TASS/. Crimea’s Supreme Court has sentenced Ukrainian national Andrey Zakhtei to a prison term of six years and six months, having found him guilty of conspiring to carry out acts of sabotage on the Black Sea peninsula, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.
Zakhtei’s case is being tried under a special procedure (without examining evidence or questioning witnesses), which, under Russia’s Criminal Procedure Code, happens only in the event the defendant cops a plea deal and expresses remorse. The choice of a special procedure for the case is a mitigating factor, because when trying a case in this manner, a court may impose no more than two-thirds of the maximum penalty mandated by the Russian Criminal Code.
"(The court) hereby sentences Andrei Romanovich Zakhtei to a prison term of six years and six months in a maximum security facility," the judge announced.
Zakhtei was charged under Part 1 of Section 30 and Part 2 of Section 281 (plotting acts of sabotage), Part 3 of Section 222 (illicit trafficking in weapons or munitions), Section 324 (acquisition and sale of official documents and state awards) and Section 327 (forgery, and the manufacture or sale of counterfeit documents) of Russia’s Criminal Code.
On August 10, 2016, Russia’s Federal Security Service (the FSB) reported that a sabotage and reconnaissance group had been detained in Crimea and that terrorist attacks plotted by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Chief Intelligence Directorate had been foiled. According to the special services’ reports, the planned terror attacks were expected to target the peninsula’s critical infrastructure.