Supreme Court Left Sentence for Convicted for Terrorist Act Unchanged

Advocate and an individual convicted to 15 years of imprisonment with the confiscation of whole property owned by him, to be served in a closed penal institution, filed their cassation complaints to the Supreme Court. Courts of first and appeal instances found that the convicted person involving other individuals, in collusion with them, had detonated a car (Part 2 of Article 27 and Part 3 of Article 258 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Due to this, six persons have been wounded, one person has died.

In their cassation complaints the plaintiffs referred to the incompleteness of judicial consideration, discrepancy of conclusions of the first instance court to factual circumstances of criminal proceedings, to the violation of criminal procedure law, as well as indicated on the illegality of sentence of the local court and ruling of the appeal court. They requested to cancel the adopted judgments and to appoint a new consideration of criminal proceedings in the court of first instance.

The Criminal Cassation Court within the SC concluded that actions of the convicted person had been qualified as a terrorist act correctly, the consideration of proceedings in the courts of first and appeal instances had been held in compliance with the requirements of criminal procedure law, and the appointed punishment was proportionate to the gravity of the relevant offences.

Besides, the arguments of the cassation complaints regarding the substantial violations of the requirements of criminal procedure law due to the non-involvement of an interpreter have been found groundless. From the materials of criminal proceedings it is seen that while pre-trial investigation and judicial proceedings neither the individual, nor his advocate had informed about misunderstanding the Ukrainian language by him. And only before the judicial debates, the advocate applied to the local court with a motion on the involvement a Ukrainian-Russian interpreter into criminal proceedings. This motion was not satisfied.

In the view of the fact that the convicted person was a Ukrainian citizen, who lived in Ukrainian speaking environment, had attended the practical course of the Ukrainian language and business Ukrainian language while studying at university, the panel of judges of the Criminal Cassation Court within the SC did not find circumstances, which would testify the restriction of the convicted person’s procedural rights based on language or the unfairness of the judicial consideration as for him in total.

The Criminal Cassation Court within the SC did not satisfy the cassation complaints of the convicted person and his advocate, and did not change the judgments of the courts of first and appeal instances.

Follow the link, to see the full text of the resolution of the Criminal Cassation Court within the SC in the case No. 653/3367/16-к (proceedings No. 51-1094км19): http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/87602113.