The Russian appellate court left the “verdict” regarding the deputy of the Novokakhovka City Council Ihor Protokovyla, who was kidnapped in 2022, unchanged. He was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum-security penal colony on a fabricated charge of alleged espionage.
This was reported by the Media Initiative for Human Rights.
It is known that Protokovyla was abducted by Russian military and FSB agents on April 19, 2022.
After his detention, the family had no information about his whereabouts for almost two years. Only in the summer of 2024 did it become known that he was being held in pretrial detention center No.1 in Chonhar.
The lawyer managed to establish contact with him; however, the appeal filed by the defense did not change the decision — the punishment remained as before.
“Ihor was accused of “espionage” — this is a standard fake charge that the Russians use for repression and terror against Ukrainians. He was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum-security penal colony. The appeal changed nothing — the sentence was left unchanged,” the report says.
Recall, the deputy of the Novokakhovka City Council from «Batkivshchyna» Ihor Protokovyla was illegally sentenced in 2024 in the temporarily occupied territory of Kherson region.
Earlier it was reported that the former mayor of Kherson Volodymyr Mykolaienko handed over a letter of support to Kherson residents who are being illegally tried in the Russian Federation.