Odesa – The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has reversed its previous ordinance on extraditing Adam Osmayev suspected of plotting an assassination attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin to Russia.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office made this decision on Aug. 15, Osmayev’s defense attorney Olha Chertok told Interfax.
“The judicial proceedings remain suspended at the expert analysis stage,” Chertok said.
It was reported earlier that Osmayev had been detained in Odessa on Feb. 4, 2012 on suspicion of having carried out a bomb attack on Tyraspolska Street on Jan. 4. The blast killed 26-year-old Russian citizen Ruslan Madayev and seriously injured Ilya Pyanzin, a 28-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan. Pyanzin was also detained later and started actively collaborating with the investigation.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office later forwarded the criminal case opened by the police on charges of “careless handling of weapons, ammunition, or explosives” to the Ukrainian Security Service department for the Odesa Oblast.
The Ukrainian Security Service said on Feb. 27, 2012 that Osmayev and Pyanzin had plotted to murder Putin after the presidential elections in Russia scheduled for March 2012 and that Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services had thwarted the plot. Based on the suspects’ testimony given in March 2012, the Ukrainian investigative agencies opened a criminal case against them on charges of “establishment of a terrorist organization” (Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 258-3) and “preparations for a terrorist attack” (Article 14 and 258).
Russia asked Ukraine in summer 2012 to hand over Osmayev and Pyanzin, but the men’s defense lawyers contested the prosecutor’s decision on their extradition. Despite the fact that the courts upheld their extradition to Russia, the delay enabled Osmayev’s lawyers to file a claim contesting his extradition with the European Court of Human Rights.
Pyanzin’s lawyers prepared to file a similar claim but failed to do so before Pyanzin was extradited to Russia in late Aug. 2012. In Russia, he recanted the evidence he had given in Ukraine.
The investigation into the criminal case against Osmayev was completed in the fall of 2013. On Nov. 16, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office endorsed the indictment and sent it to the Primorsky District Court in Odesa, which has considered the case since then.
