The 1st Western District Military Court acquitted St. Petersburg resident Igor Siomik in the case of money transfer to a terrorist organization. This was reported by the press secretary of the joint press service of the city courts, Daria Lebedeva.
Siomik was accused of financing terrorism (Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code) and illegal formation of a legal entity (clause “b” of Part 2 of Article 173.1 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, on January 26, 2023, a St. Petersburg resident transferred 130 thousand rubles to the accounts of the Ukrainian Azov, recognized as a terrorist organization. In addition, the man was also charged with registering a legal entity for another person and transferring false data to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.
At the trial, Siomik explained that he sold the card from which the transfer was made to a stranger on January 12, 2023. At the same time, the defendant changed the phone number to which the card was linked in his personal bank account. Later, telecom operators provided the court with information that the number did not belong to the person involved in the case, but to the citizen of Moldova Ya.
During the trial, one of the witnesses in M.’s case also said that he did not give the testimony indicated in his interrogation report. The case materials stated that Siomik discussed with M. collecting money and transferring it to Ukraine. At the same time, according to M., the St. Petersburg resident did not tell him about anything like that.
The witness suggested that it was unlikely that Siomik would have told him about such plans, knowing that M.’s brother was participating in the war against Ukraine. According to the witness, he signed the interrogation report without reading it because he felt bad. On the morning before the interrogation, the security forces took him, still drunk, to the hospital to “dig in,” and then took him to the investigator.
The military court found Siomik’s guilt on charges of financing terrorism unproven and sentenced him to two years and eight months in prison. settlements under the article on the illegal formation of a legal entity. The man did not deny guilt under this article. Taking into account the time spent in the pre-trial detention center, the St. Petersburg resident was released in the courtroom. He has been in custody since March 2023.
After Siomik’s arrest, the REN TV channel published a video with him — in the video, the man said in a trembling voice that he had found a part-time job on the Internet as a “money carrier.” He explained that he had to “collect this money and transfer it to the cards of gangsters in Ukraine.”