Crimean civic journalist and nurse Iryna Danylovych sentenced to 7 years in prison

Crimean civic journalist and nurse Iryna Danylovych sentenced to 7 years in prison
Photo: Crimean Process

On December 28, the Russian-controlled district ‘court’ of Feodosia in occupied Crimea sentenced the civic journalist and nurse Iryna Danylovych to seven years in prison and fined her 50,000 rubles.

Iryna Danylovych was found guilty of ‘illegal operations with explosive substances and devices’. During her final statement in court, she said that she was not the first one to whom the FSB applied its ‘dirty methods of falsification’, and named the people abducted in Crimea since 2014, the Krym.Realii informs. In her speech, she particularly mentioned Reshat Ametov, the first victim of the annexation of the peninsula.

Iryna’s defense pointed to the numerous contradictions in the testimony, the inadmissibility of some ‘evidence’ the case file contained, the lack of significant arguments, and the perjury born by one of the attesting witnesses who turned out to be a Crimean ‘police’ officer.

On December 27, Iryna Danylovych felt ill during the ‘court’ hearing. The ambulance was called to the courtroom; still, Danylovych was denied hospitalization. Her health got further worse in the detention center where Iryna was deprived of medical assistance. During the hearings, she has repeatedly stated that she could not hear anything and understand what was going on in the courtroom, therefore.

On November 30, Iryna Danylovych stated that she had been tortured by the FSB officers: they held her in the basement, chocked, deprived her of visiting the bathroom and threatened to kill her.

Iryna Danylovych was abducted on April 29 in occupied Crimea. Without her participation, the occupiers conducted a search warrant at her place. Until May 7, she had been kept in the basement of the FSB without any legal status or assistance. Later, the explosive was ‘found’ in the bag confiscated from Danylovych. 

Iryna Danylovych worked as a nurse and wrote some blogs on different sites dealing with the rights of medical workers and healthcare issues in Crimea. She was active in the social media and appeared on the Ukrainian TV.

december 28, 2022
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