A “treason” verdict in 20 minutes — a record set in Sevastopol

At the “Sevastopol City Court”, the consideration and delivery of a verdict in a criminal case of “state treason” against local resident Sergei Bodnarashik took place in a single day. He was accused of allegedly passing coordinates of Russian military units to Ukrainian intelligence. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 14 years in prison along with a fine of 200,000 rubles.

Experts from Crimean Process noted that the court’s official website indicated the hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. The next entry, recording the end of the announcement of the verdict, was marked at 10:20 a.m. Thus, the entire process — including the stages of establishing the defendant’s identity, explaining his rights, considering whether judicial investigation was necessary, hearing arguments from both sides, the defendant’s final statement, time in the deliberation room, and the reading of the introductory and operative parts of the verdict — took only 20 minutes.

“This record indicates either that the court ignored certain stages of judicial procedure, or that case records were kept negligently. However, even if we assume the latter, we still have a unique situation: from the moment the case on a particularly serious crime began to the dissemination of information about the verdict, no more than four hours passed,” Crimean Process emphasized.

This article is the property of the Crimean Process. Read the news in Russian on its website.