MOSCOW, March 7 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree pardoning Oksana Sevastidi, who had been sentenced to 7 years in prison for treason, according to the official website of legal information.

The order will take effect after five days from its official publication.

Sevastidi, born in 1970, was convicted and sentenced in March 2016.

In 2008, the woman sent SMS-messages to her friends allegedly containing information about a railroad train with war equipment bounding for the Republic of Abkhazia.

According to Sevastidi’s lawyer Ivan Pavlov, it was not the first case opened on charges of treason because of SMS-messages sent shortly before the military operation in Georgia resulted in Russian recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.