In Crimea, trial of Semena continues

On May 22, in the controlled by the Kremlin Zaliznychnyi (Zheleznodorozhnyi)  district court of Simferopol, the trial on the case of the Crimean journalist Mykola Semena continued, Krym.Realii reports.

At the session, they intended to finish studying the case materials and to interrogate the FSB expert Ivanova, who provided her expert opinion of the linguistic expertise of the journalist's text.

At the previous session on May 10, the court interrogated two witnesses and started studying the case materials.

As IMI informed before, on December 7, 2016, Mykola Semena was accused, in the final wording, of the criminal offence stipulated in part 2, article 280.1. of the Criminal Code of Russia “Public appeals to commit acts aimed to violate the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation”. The criminal case consists of six volumes, and the lawyers started studying the materials.

FSB of Russia claims that it was Mykola Semena, who wrote (under a penname) the article for Krym.Realii titled “Blocade is the necessary first step to liberate Crimea”. The former prosecutor general of the annexed Crimea, who was the one to accuse Semena, claimed that Krym.Realii enabled “justification of acts of sabotage and extremism”. The 66-year-old journalist can be imprisoned for up to five years.