Odesa resident failed to cancel evidence of his high treason

The Supreme Court has upheld the sentence of a man sentenced to 15 years in prison for high treason, rejecting the defense's arguments about the inadmissibility of evidence and procedural violations.

According to the Judicial and Legal Newspaper, the court of first instance found that the defendant, being a citizen of Ukraine and staying in the Odesa region under martial law, acting intentionally, transmitted military information that was not publicly available to representatives of a foreign state.

In particular, during July-August 2022, using a mobile phone and the Telegram messenger, he systematically transmitted data on the location of units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the location of military equipment, infrastructure facilities, the results of exercises, as well as the exact geographical coordinates of the relevant facilities.

The information was transferred both through the administrators of the pro-Russian information resource and directly to a person identified as an employee of the Russian intelligence agency. The transmitted information was accompanied by photographic materials, images from mapping services, as well as clarification of the number of personnel and characteristics of equipment. These actions were systematic and aimed at facilitating subversive activities against Ukraine.

The court found the man guilty of high treason, and the Court of Appeal upheld the verdict. However, the convict's lawyers insisted on provocation of the crime, incorrect qualification of his actions as high treason, inadmissibility of evidence obtained during the search in the absence of a defense lawyer, falsification of the search video, violation of the right to defense, illegal composition of the court, violation of the pre-trial investigation, deficiencies in the indictment and other procedural violations. However, the court rejected all these complaints.

Following the cassation review, the Supreme Court concluded that there were no significant violations of procedural law or misapplication of the law on criminal liability and upheld the court decisions and dismissed the cassation appeal.

Кирило Бойко