MOSCOW, August 8 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) - Two women, had earlier received prison terms for treason and had been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, were released on Tuesday, lawyer Ivan Pavlov told RAPSI.
Putin signed a pardon decree in late July.

Marina Dzhandzhgava was sentenced to 12 years behind bars in 2013; Annik Kesyan was given an 8-year prison term in 2014, according to the website of unofficial human rights group of lawyers and journalists Team 29. They were convicted of sending messages allegedly containing information about a railroad train with war equipment bounding for the Republic of Abkhazia in 2008.

In March 2017, Putin pardoned another woman, Oksana Sevastidi, who had been sentenced to 7 years in prison for the same crime. She was released on March 12.

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.