Court acquits four of five people charged with painting star on Kotelniki high-rise building
MOSCOW. Sept 10 (Interfax) - The Moscow Tagansky District Court sentenced Vladimir Podrezov to two years and three months in a penal colony and acquitted the other four people charged with painting a star on a high-rise building on the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, an Interfax correspondent has reported, citing the resolution part of the sentence.
The prosecutor earlier said during the presentation of arguments that he believes that Yevgeny Korotkov, Alexander Pogrebov, Alexei Shirokozhukhov and Vladimir Podrezov should be sentenced to three years in prison, but believes that Anna Lepeshkina, who is pregnant, can be given a suspended prison sentence.
The defense lawyers, for their part, had insisted that the defendants be acquitted.
On the morning of August 20, 2014, unknown individuals put a yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag sized three to six meters on the spire of a Stalin-era high-rise building on the Kotelnicheskaya Embankment and painted the top of the star located on the spire blue.
Initially, a criminal case was opened based on Article 214 of the Russian Criminal Code (vandalism). However, the press service for the Moscow police later reported that it had been reclassified under Part 2 of Article 213 of the Russian Criminal Code (hooliganism) and had been forwarded from the interrogation department to the investigations department of the interior affairs' department for the Central District. It was later reported that the five young people had been charged with two criminal counts.
The defendants deny their involvement in the painting of the star on the spire of the high-rise building and in the hanging of the Ukrainian flag. They said that they just happened to be at the crime scene when they jumped from a roof several dozen meters lower than the spire with the star.
On August 22, 2014, a man who gave his name as Ukrainian citizen Grigory (Grisha Mustang Wanted) said on social networking sites that the detained Russians were innocent and claimed responsibility for the incident.