OSCE interpreter sentenced to 13 years for high treason

The Lugansk People’s Republic Supreme Court has sentenced an interpreter of the Lugansk Office of the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to 13 years in prison for high treason.

“A panel of judges found Maxim Petrov guilty of the crime covered by LPR Criminal Code Article 335 and sentenced him to 13 years in prison,” the Court said.

Petrov can appeal the verdict within ten days.

“Petrov prepared and handed over confidential summarized data on LPR People’s Militia 2nd Corps to his U.S. supervisor (from the Defense Intelligence Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense),” the LPR State Security Ministry (MGB) press service said.

“He gathered sensitive information by sounding out LPR militiamen and monitoring the situation during regular contact line patrolling as an OSCE Mission member,” the press service said.

The Court heard the case against Petrov behind closed doors.

Earlier on Monday, the LPR Supreme Court handed down a guilty verdict to OSCE employee Dmitry Shabanov sentencing him to 13 years in prison for high treason.

The LPR MGB press service earlier reported that the Supreme Court had begun to hear a high treason case against an LPR resident who was an OSCE employee.

MGB officers had detained two OSCE SMM Lugansk Team member on suspicion of high treason. One of the detainees admitted passing sensitive information to foreign secret services. The LPR MGB also recorded facts of sabotage carried out by LPR residents as members of the OSCE SMM Lugansk team.

LPR Head Leonid Pasechnik banned the operation of the OSCE SMM in the Republic. Pasechink said that the OSCE SMM had not contributed to the settlement of the Donbass conflict even once in the eight years.

The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014.  The Donbass peace talks participants have announced ceasefire more than 20 times since the autumn of 2014. Kiev forces regularly violated the truce opening fire with large caliber artillery, mortars and tank guns which were to have been withdrawn from the contact line under the accords. *i*s