MOSCOW, November 18 (Sputnik) — Ukraine's Odesa regional court has released a man, previously suspected of plotting the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin back in 2012, the suspect's lawyer told Sputnik Tuesday.
"[The Prymorskyi District] Court [of the Odesa Region] has released [Adam] Osmayev from the courtroom," the Chechen national's attorney Olga Chertok told Sputnik.
Chertok went on to explain that the Odesa court convicted Osmayev on three counts of illegally manufacturing explosive devices, crossing the Ukrainian border, using fraudulent documents and negligent damage to property. The court, however, released Osmayev after the verdict, concluding that the two years, nine months and 14 days that he spent in custody were sufficient punishment for his crimes.
In January 2012 a group of three alleged plotters, including Osmayev, his compatriot Ruslan Madayev and Kazakh-born Ilya Pyanzin, was exposed after a homemade bomb accidentally exploded in Odesa. Madayev was killed in the blast; Pyanzin was extradited to Russia in 2012 and sentenced to 10 years by the Moscow City Court in October 2013. He reportedly told Ukrainian security officers of an alleged plan to assassinate then-Prime Minister Putin and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office later dropped the two criminal charges that linked Osmayev to the assassination attempt, alleging his involvement in terrorism activities and attempted murder.
