ST. PETERSBURG. Sept 3 (Interfax) - Estonian Internal Security Service officer Eston Kohver's defense team has not appealed his conviction by a Russian court as he did not ask it to do so, lawyer Yevgeny Aksyonov told Interfax on Thursday.
"I haven't received a request on appealing [the conviction] from Kohver. I don't know whether he is going to appeal the sentence himself," Aksyonov said.
"I can only guess [about Kohver's motives]. After the sentence was handed down, an Estonian Foreign Ministry official said they would meet with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov to discuss the issue. I believe this is interrelated," he said.
The court had earlier set the deadline for Kohver's defense team to appeal his conviction for August 31 and for Kohver himself for September 3.
On September 5, 2014, the Russian Federal Security Service detained Kohver, an officer of the Estonian Interior Ministry's Internal Security Service, in possession of weapons and a large sum of money on the Russia-Estonia border. A court in Moscow ordered his arrest on espionage charges on September 6, 2014. He was also later charged with illegally possessing and smuggling firearms, and illegally crossing the Russian state border. The trial of his case began in Pskov in early June. At the same time, Estonia insists that Kohver was illegally detained on the Estonian side of the border. Russia says the officer crossed the border and was detained in Russian territory.
On August 19, 2015, the Pskov Regional Court sentenced Kohver to 15 years in prison on espionage charges.