MOSCOW- A court in the Russian capital has convicted a Ukrainian journalist of spying and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
Roman Sushchenko was a correspondent for Ukrinform, Ukraine’s state news agency and has been in custody since his arrest in October 2016 by Russia’s top domestic security agency, the FSB.
In the court proceedings FSB claimed that Sushchenko was a Ukrainian military intelligence officer collecting sensitive information about the Russian armed forces. Sushchenko rejected all the charges.
On Monday Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko rejected the verdict by the Moscow City Court as a show of “unprecedented cynicism”.
Harlem Desir from a top security and rights group and media freedom representative, at Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the sentence was deplorable and called for Sushchenko’s release.
Photo Credit- english.alarabiya.net
Leave a Reply