Occupation judge sentenced to 10 years for deporting a Ukrainian from Crimea

The Kyiv Court of Appeals upheld the sentence of the so-called judge of the Kirovsky District Court of the Republic of Crimea, who had previously been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison for violating the laws and customs of war.

This was reportedby the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol.

According to the investigation, in 2018, the defendant, acting in accordance with the legislation of the occupying state, issued a decision to deporta Crimean resident from the peninsula. The alleged grounds were a violation of the rules governing the stay of foreign citizens on Russian territory.

The prosecutor’s office emphasizes that, in effect, the occupation judge treated a Ukrainian citizen as a foreigner on the territory of his own state. At the same time, he knew that residents of occupied Crimea are protected by international humanitarian law and do not require any additional permits to reside on the peninsula.

The investigation believes that with this decision, the representative of the occupying judicial system facilitated the Russian Federation’s policy aimed at changing the demographic composition of the population of occupied Crimea.

The Darnytskyi District Court of Kyiv found him guilty of violating the laws and customs of war and sentenced him in absentia to 10 years’ imprisonment. The defense appealed the verdict, but the appellate court dismissed the appeal and upheld the first-instance decision.

Earlier, a former lieutenant colonel of the Kherson region’s penitentiary system was sentenced to life in prison for deportingprisoners from Kherson. In October 2022, he organized the forced transfer of convicts from a Kherson facility to a penal colony on the left bank of the region. Subsequently, under his leadership, more than 1,500 prisoners were transported to places of detention in the temporarily occupied territories and in Russia. 

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