MOSCOW, November 16 (RAPSI) – The Supreme Court of Russia on Thursday reduced the sentence of Inga Tutisani, who had been convicted of treason, from 6 to 4 years and 1 month in prison, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.
The woman has sent a message to Georgia containing information on Russia’s troops movement in August 2008, according to case papers.
Tutisani will be released from prison in 9 days, her attorney Ivan Pavlov wrote on his Facebook.
Earlier, three other women, who had received prison terms in similar cases, were pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and freed.
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 late July, they were pardoned.
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 Pavlov, the case of Sevastidi was not the first one 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.