A St. Petersburg court has pronounced a 27-year prison sentence for Daria Trepova, the 26-year-old woman found guilty of assassinating ultranationalist pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in April. The incident unfolded during an event at a St. Petersburg café where Tatarsky was speaking.
On April 2, Trepova attended the event, presenting Tatarsky with a statuette that concealed explosives, resulting in an explosion that killed Tatarsky and injured 52 others. Despite her guilty plea for forging documents related to the act, Trepova maintained ignorance regarding the explosives inside the statuette.
Sentencing details and maximum charges
The court considered the maximum sentencing for acts of terrorism, trafficking explosives, and forging documents, which collectively amounts to 30 years.
Trepova admitted guilt only to document forgery, prompting the prosecution’s request for a 19-year term for terrorism, 14 years for trafficking explosives, and three years for document forgery, totaling 28 years. Additional non-custodial restrictions and a fine of 800,000 rubles were proposed.
Daria Trepova’s lawyer, Daniil Berman, challenged the evidence’s sufficiency and called for a re-investigation with revised charges. He suggested the possibility of charging Trepova with invasion of privacy or treason rather than a terrorist attack.
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“A terrorist attack is something else altogether,” Berman asserted, emphasising the need for a reconsideration of the charges against his client.
Dmitry Kasintsev, a friend of Trepova implicated in the aftermath, received a sentence of one year and nine months for concealing the crime.
Despite facing a maximum two-year prison term, Kasintsev argued that he was only guilty of “failure to report a crime,” as his defence sought a full acquittal or a non-custodial sentence.
(With inputs from agencies)
