In an act of desperation, the hungry Ukrainian decided to commit a small crime, but eventually was arrested.
In 2015, the trial court declared Ostryakov guilty of theft and sentenced him to six months in prison and a fine of € 100. His defense appealed against the verdict, saying that in Ostryakov's case it was instead an attempted theft as the man was caught before he left the store.
Surprisingly, the Italian Court of Appeal empathized with the poor man completely and declared him not guilty. They ruled that Ostryakov acted "out of imminent need of sustenance" and that "he had to take only a small amount of food to satisfy his hunger," Italian news website rainews.it reported.
The court compared his act to Jean Valjean — the hero of Victor Hugo's novel "Les Miserables" — who spent many years in prison for stealing food for his sister's hungry children.
Some Italians viewed the decision of the court as "a humanistic act of mercy," although Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, criticized the country's court system for the fact that it needed almost five years to resolve a case worth less than €5.
