G20 Putin Pack: Captured by Militants in Ukraine, Tried in Russia
How can a Ukrainian military pilot be abducted to Russia after being taken prisoner by militants in Ukraine?.
Why have the investigators tried to prevent inclusion of testimony that proves her innocent of the main charges?
How can they seriously suggest charging Savchenko with ‘illegally crossing the border’?
Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko was captured around June 17, 2014 by militants in eastern Ukraine [Luhansk oblast]. A video of her interrogation by these Kremlin-backed militants was published on June 20.
On July 2 a Russian court remanded her in custody until August 30. She is currently held in detention in Moscow with the latest court order extending her detention until February 2015.
Savchenko asserts that she was taken by force across the border into Russia.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has claimed that she entered, pretending to be a refugee and was arrested after being stopped in a routine check.
The investigators have recently also threatened to charge her with ‘illegally crossing the border’.
The investigators claim that in June, as a member of the Aidar Battalion, Savchenko found out the whereabouts of a group of TV Rossiya journalists and other civilians outside Luhansk, and passed these to fighters who carried out a mortar attack which killed TV Rossiya employees Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin.
The investigators have fought hard to:
have all court hearings held behind closed doors
prevent testimony being added to the case which proves that Savchenko was nowhere near the place where the two Russians were killed
Nadiya Savchenko was elected to Ukraine’s parliament in October and has therefore resigned from the military. She was, however, a Ukrainian officer when taken prisoner by the militants making Russia’s refusal to release her under the Minsk Agreement in clear breach of that accord.
The renowned Memorial Human Rights Centre has declared Nadiya Savchenko a political prisoner.
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