cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/50369424
Russia’s occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ has sentenced 56-year-old Volodymyr Perzhynsky to over 12 years’ maximum-security imprisonment just days after the same illegitimate body passed an ever harsher, 15-year sentence against Volodymyr’s 25-year-old son, Mark Perzhynsky. Everything about this family persecution, from the initial abduction of father and son to Volodymyr Perzhynsky’s videoed ‘confession’ and two sentences passed without any evidence of real trials, is ominously reminiscent of countless other cases where Russia’s FSB have claimed to have ‘thwarted’ Ukrainian saboteurs.
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Volodymyr Perzhynsky, who is from Bratske, in Melitopol raion, is a prominent farmer, while his son was well-known as a professional weightlifter. Although most of the aspects of their ‘case’ have been seen before, the eye-watering amounts that both father and son were ordered to pay in supposed ‘compensation’, as well as in fines, only increase the suspicion that they were targeted in retaliation for Volodymyr Perzhynsky’s refusal to collaborate with the Russian occupiers. According to the Ukrainian publication RIA-South, all local farmers came under huge pressure from the invaders, were forced to hand over their grain for a pittance, were threatened at gunpoint and often subjected to abductions and fabrication of criminal charges.
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Judging by the dates, it seems likely that both men were abducted around November 2023, with nothing to indicate how long they were held incommunicado, without any formal status, before being charged. It is particularly during such periods where a person is denied any contact with independent lawyers or family, that detainees are subjected to illegal forms of duress, including torture, in order to fabricate ‘evidence’.
56-year-old Volodymyr Perzhynsky was sentenced to 12 years and 5 months of maximum-security imprisonment, with the first four years in a prison, the harshest of Russian penal institutions.
Mark Perzhynsky (25) received a 15-year maximum-security sentence, also with the first four years in a prison.
The illegal occupation ‘Zaporizhzhia regional court’ also imposed one million roubles fines against both father and son and ordered confiscation of money to cover supposed ‘damages’ claimed to reach 17.6 million rouble ‘damages’.