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Ukrainian Court Frees Man Jailed for Putin Assassination Attempt

Adam Osmayev

A Ukrainian court ordered the release of Adam Osmayev, a Chechen man who had been jailed over an alleged plot to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.

The Odessa court ruled that the two years and nine months Osmayev had served in prison were a sufficient punishment for his crimes, Interfax reported. Last month, the court dropped terrorism charges that had been laid against him.

Osmayev was arrested in Odessa in February 2012 after a botched rehearsal of an alleged assassination attempt using a homemade bomb that killed his co-conspirator and seriously injured another accomplice.

The surviving accomplice, Ilya Pyanzin, was extradited to Russia in 2012 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013. Ukraine's prosecutor general backtracked in August on its earlier decision to extradite Osmayev to Russia after he filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, the RAPSI legal news agency reported.

In 2012, Osmayev was found guilty of illegally handling explosives, destroying property and entering Ukraine with forged documents.

Osmayev and his accomplices had allegedly planned to assassinate Putin by detonating a car bomb during the passage of his motorcade.

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