KYIV, March 12 (Interfax) - Adam Osmayev, suspected organizer of an attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin's life, said Ukrainian and Russian special service wanted to kill him.
"I demand that law be observed in Ukraine and request that all necessary measures be taken in compliance with Ukrainian and international law," says Osmayev letter, read out by his wife Amina Okuyeva at a press conference in Kyiv.
"It was established in court during hearings of the case fabricated against me that the so-called evidence, provided by special services, holds no water and does not correspond to the elementary legal and procedural practice. Seeing that the court hearings have departed from their scenario, special services started preparations for what I perceive as my physical elimination. They wrote I am 'a high escape risk' in my file, which is mere fiction," he said.
Osmayev said a psychologist was attached to him "to gather scientific proof" of his being mentally unbalanced and a high escape and suicide risk.
His defense attorney Olga Chertok said the letter would be handed over to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and to the leaders of Ukrainian special services and the Prosecutor General's Office.
"As a person who backtracked on the initial testimony, he got the se-called red line in his personal file - 'high escape risk'. You understand: one step to the right, one step to the left and you will get a dead body of someone killed during an attempted escape," Chertok said.
"We do not want this to happen. We want to carry this case to court and get a verdict. We do not want the case to be closed in connection with the defendant's death," she said.
It was reported earlier that Adam Osmayev was detained in Odessa on February 4, 2012 on suspicion of committing a bomb attack on Tyraspolska Street earlier the same day. The blast killed 26-year-old Russian citizen Ruslan Madayev and seriously injured Pyanzin, a 28-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office later forwarded a criminal case opened by the police on charges of "careless handling of weapons, ammunition, or explosives" to the Ukrainian Security Service department for the Odessa region. It turned out that investigators had found elements of improvised explosive devices at the fire scene. Pyanzin was also detained and started actively cooperating with the investigation.
The Ukrainian Security Service confirmed on February 27 that Osmayev and Pyanzin had plotted to murder Putin after the presidential elections in Russia scheduled for March 2012 and that Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services had thwarted the alleged plan.
Russia asked Ukraine in summer 2012 to hand over Osmayev and Pyanzin, but the men's defense lawyers contested the prosecutor's decision on their extradition. Despite the fact that the courts upheld the extradition to Russia, the delay enabled Osmayev's lawyers to file a claim contesting his extradition with the European Court of Human Rights. The lawyers for Pyanzin prepared to file a similar claim but did failed to make it before Pyanzin was extradited to Russia in late August 2012. In Russia, he recanted the evidence he had given in Ukraine.