MOSCOW, July 13 (RAPSI) – Russia’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova has filed a petition with the Moscow City Court seeking release of Anton Mamayev, a wheelchair person sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for armed robbery, the ombudsman’s website announced on Thursday.

Moreover, Moskalkova has lodged a request with the Federal Penitentiary Service to speed up medical examination of the convict.

Earlier, she visited Mamayev in a hospital. According to the ombudsman, Mamayev is suffering from a complex of diseases barring the service of sentence, including Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

In late June, Moscow’s Timiryazevsky District Court found Mamayev and his alleged accomplice Vasily Seroshtanov guilty of robbery with the use of force. Mamayev received 4.5 years in prison, Seroshtanov was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

According to the Moscow City Court, the lower court’s judge during delivering the judgment took into consideration nature and level of public danger of the committed crime qualified as serious, identity of the defendants and their role in the crime, presence of mitigating circumstances or absence of aggravating circumstances, and gave them sentence within sanctions prescribed by the law. The Timiryazevsky District Court’s ruling reads that the court took into account that Mamayev’s illness is not included in the list of diseases approved by the order of the Health Ministry and the Justice Ministry.

Defense lawyers have filed an appeal against the sentence and a motion demanding to release Mamayev from jail.