MOSCOW, Nov 14 Journalist of an international media group ” Russia Today,” member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Armen Gasparyan said that the verdict passed by the court in Kiev did not surprise him at all, and he treats it with irony.
Earlier, the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported that the court sentenced Gasparyan in absentia to ten years in prison. The Shevchenko District Court of the capital found him guilty, among other things, of promoting allegations about the insolvency of Ukraine.
“I was not at all surprised by the verdict, if only because, according to the criminal code, under the article under which they were convicted, the maximum sentence is ten years. The only thing that surprised me were two things: first, why did they delay for so long? Because “in court, this case was considered today at the tenth meeting, although usually everyone was in a crowd, the verdict was pronounced in ten minutes,” Gasparyan said.
He noted that the second point that surprised him concerns the confiscation of property.
“I don’t know for what reason the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kiev is not aware that, according to Zelensky’s decree, Gasparyan’s property in Ukraine, which, however, never existed, was confiscated in October last year,” Gasparyan emphasized.
There was no trial as such, everything was in the best traditions of 1937, despite all the decommunization being carried out, he added.
“I treat it with irony. I hope the verdict will not affect my professional activity in any way. Although this, of course, is funny, because we haven’t even seen the court’s decision yet. We learned that the decision was made from messages on the Internet, although they should have scheduled the eleventh court hearing today,” concluded Gasparyan.