#henadiy afanasiev

[globe-news]

Russian court jails Ukrainian filmmaker Sentsov and activist Kolchenko

A Russian military court on Tuesday sentenced the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and the Anarchist activist Alexander Kolchenko to 20 or 10 years in prison due to charges of plotting terror attacks in Crimea. Sentsov, who is best known for his 2011 film Gamer, and Kolchenko were arrested in their homeland, the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula shortly after it was annexed by Russia last year. Both actively supported the protests during Ukraine's Maidan revolution. Human Rights organizations criticized the trial, Amnesty International called the ruling “a blatant injustice after a patently unfair trial marred by credible allegations of torture". Sentsov, who was according Russian authorities involved in two attempted Right Sector arson attacks in the city of Simferopol, said that he was beaten in jail for 24 hours in an attempt to force a confession. Also Kolchenko reported similar things and one of the major witnesses against them, Henadiy Afanasiev, retraced his testimony as given under torture. After the verdict was read out, both men sang the Ukrainian National Anthem.