Two FSB officers to be tried for persecuting a journalist in the occupied Crimea
The Prosecutor's Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea have submitted a court indictment against two Russian FSB officers who persecuted Ukrainian journalist Hanna Andrievska in occupied Crimea. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol reported this on Facebook.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the accused persons, who used to work at the Main Office of the Security Service of Ukraine in the AR of Crimea, broak their oath and sided with the enemy after the peninsula was temporarily occupied in February 2014. They were appointed senior forensic investigator and 1st rank specialist (expert) at the "FSB of Russia in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol" branches formed by the occupation authorities.
According to the investigation, the defendants persecuted the journalist due to her professional work, namely, the publishing articles objectively covering the events on the peninsula after its occupation. They fabricated a "criminal case" and in March 2015 illegally broke into the apartment where the victim lived with her parents (Krasnogvardiysky district of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea).
"Against the home owners' will, threatening violence in case of resistance or non-compliance, they unlawfully searched the apartment, demanding to see items and documents which the victim did not possess. They also seized items and documents that were in the journalist's personal possession and could have been related to her professional work," the report says.
As a result of the unlawful actions of the occupying law enforcers, the victim's entry to the territory of the peninsula is restricted.
The actions of the accused are classified as persecution of a journalist for performing their professional duties, carried out by a group of persons upon prior conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), illegal entry into a home, illegal search with threats of violence (Part 2 of Article 28; Part 2 of Article 162 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and treason (Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The sanction of the most severe article provides for up to fifteen years in prison.
As the IMI reported, on March 13, 2015, officers of the Russian FSB searched the apartment of Crimean journalist Hanna Andrievska's parents as part of a criminal case initiated following her report about the Crimea Battalion volunteers, published on the website of the Ukrainian news agency "Center for Journalistic Investigations".
The Russian FSB opened a criminal case against Hanna Andrievska under Article 280.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (public calls for violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation).
The journalist said that the report had been published back in December 2014. The article is about the volunteers of the Crimea Battalion, what kind of organization it is and how they work. Andrievska stated that the report did not contain any calls for the peninsula's secession.
In 2019, the Solomyansky District Court of Kyiv obliged Russia to pay over 1 million hryvnias in redress to journalist Hanna Andrievska, who was forced to leave occupied Crimea and had been persecuted by the FSB.
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