Russian court refuses to commute sentence to Maidan activist Kostenko

August 19, the Kirovo-Chepetsk District Court in Kirov region, Russia, refused to revise the sentence to Euromaidan activist, Crimea resident Oleksandr Kostenko.

This was announced by his lawyer Dmitry Sotnikov.

“August 19, 2016, the court denied him [Oleksandr Kostenko] commuting penalty of deprivation of liberty. The reason is not related to the law. According to the explanations of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, the list of grounds for refusal is exhaustive and it does not include being on special file. But, despite the fact that Kostenko has only positive characteristics, the sentence to Kostenko was not commuted because of his being on a file ‘inclined to escape’,” Sotnikov wrote on Facebook.

According to the defense, the reason for refusal is that “Kostenko does not want to cooperate with Russian Federal Security service.”

Sotnikov said that this court’s ruling would be appealed. The lawyer added that his client still needed surgery on elbow joint.

Oleksandr Kostenko was sentenced to 4 years and 2 months in prison. According to investigators, 18 February, 2014, Kostenko inflicted injuries to Crimean officer of the Berkut special riot police force during “mass unrest” in Kyiv. The investigators also claimed that the activist illegally kept a rifle barrel at home.

Kostenko did not admit his guilt. Late February 2016, the presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian-controlled Crimea considered the cassation appeal of Kostenko’s lawyer and ruled to uphold the previous rulings.