A Russian court has sentenced a Ukrainian film director to 20 years in a labor camp, bringing what some say is an exceptionally harsh close to the latest in a new run of what are widely considered political show-trials for those who oppose Vladimir Putin’s rule.
Oleg Sentsov, 39, with his co-defendant, Alexander Kolchenko, were convicted of plotting terrorist attacks against Russian organizations in Crimea following the region's seizure by Russian troops in the spring of 2014. Sentsov has denied the charges, which Amnesty International and other rights organizations have condemned as fabricated.
Many observers Sentsov appears to have been targeted for participating in pro-Ukrainian demonstrations criticizing Russia’s takeover of Crimea. The proceedings had the hallmarks of a show trial, with the chief prosecution witness withdrawing his testimony against Senstov midway through, saying he had been tortured into making it.
Sentsov himself has said he was also beaten by Russian security agents after his arrest. Police claimed bruises on Sentsov’s body were the result of sadomasochistic sex games prior to his detention. The U.S. State Department in a statement condemned Tuesday’s sentencing as a “miscarriage of justice”.
In court Sentsov, who has young children, has calmly dismissed the case against him as politically ordered.
“I won’t ask anything from you,” Sentsov told the judge in his closing statement, Radio Free Europe reported. “Everyone understands everything. A court of occupiers cannot be just by definition.”
The trial is the most high profile of a battery of criminal cases currently underway in Russia, which some say are intended to terrify the relatively small number of Russians who oppose the Kremlin’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine.
Russian authorities have shown themselves unwilling to brook little criticism of Crimea’s annexation—within days of the peninsula’s seizure, community leaders demonstrating against it there began to be kidnapped by masked men.
Now prosecutors are investigating roughly a dozen cases against Ukrainian citizens; the most widely known involves Nadezhda Savchenko, Ukraine’s first female military pilot, who the Ukrainian government considers is being held hostage by Russia.
Even in a country familiar with political trials, the 20-year sentence handed to Sentsov and the 10 years to his co-defendant, Kolchenko, are exceptionally harsh. Both men will serve their time in maximum security labor camps.
Before being led away, the two men sang the Ukrainian national anthem. In his closing speech, Sentsov quoted the Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, who suffered during the years of Stalin’s terror.
“Cowardice is the main and the worst sin on Earth. A big betrayal sometimes begins with a small act of cowardice,” he said. “Like when they put a bag over your head and beat you and after half an hour you are ready to renounce all your convictions.
"I don’t know what your convictions are worth if you aren’t ready to suffer for them.”