MOSCOW, February 27 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – The Moscow City Court will consider the complaints against the verdict in the case over the attack on the Bolshoi Ballet artistic director Sergei Filin on March 6, RAPSI reported from the courtroom Thursday.
Sergei Filin sustained third-degree burns to his face and eyes in the acid attack last January.
On December 3, the leading Bolshoi Ballet soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko was convicted for masterminding the attack and sentenced by the Meschansky District Court of Moscow to 6 years in prison. The court ruled that other defendants in the trial – former convict Yuri Zarutsky, who carried out the attack, and driver Andrei Lipatov – only did the jobs that had been assigned to them by Dmitrichenko.
Zarutsky received a 10 year sentence, while Lipatov was sentenced to four years in jail. Dmitrichenko and Lipatov had pleaded not guilty, while Zarutsky claimed he planned and carried out the attack on his own.
The court also ordered the defendants to pay Filin 3.5 million rubles ($97,800) in compensation for medical costs and moral damage. The defense of the defendants appealed the verdict. Dmitrichenko's attorney Sergei Kadyrov asked to revoke the sentence and define his acts as battery.
Filin returned to Moscow last September after six months of treatment in a German hospital. He has undergone more than 20 eye surgeries, and German doctors said that his eyesight had improved significantly.