SIMFEROPOL. Oct 28 (Interfax) - The procedural status of Crimean resident Oleg Prikhodko, 61, who is identified as a defendant in the criminal case over the plotting of a terrorist attack on the peninsula, was changed from a suspect to a defendant.
"Charges were issued against him today. The status of my client is a defendant now," Prikhodko's lawyer Nazim Sheikhmambetov told Interfax.
"The investigator told us that four inspections had been scheduled. These are outpatient psychiatric, explosive-technical, biological, and complex linguistic inspections. We, in turn, filed a number of petitions," the lawyer added.
The maximum prison term, which Prikhodko may face, is 7.5 years in a high-security penal colony, he said.
Prikhodko is being held at a detention facility in Simferopol, he was moved from a quarantine cell to a common one, the lawyer added. "The conditions are quite convenient, there is even a refrigerator. His health condition is satisfactory. Medicines and eyeglasses were passed on to him. There are no complaints," Sheikhmambetov said.
Federal Security Service operatives detained Prikhodko, a smith from the Crimean village of Orekhovo, Saki Region, on October 9. He is charged with plotting a blast in the building housing the local administration of a small town of Saki in western Crimea. Law enforcement officers discovered in Prikhodko's garage an improvised explosive device, its parts and tools for making it, and incendiary bottles. The Crimean resident said that explosives had been planted on him.
Prikhodko is charged with illegal manufacture of explosives and the attempt at carrying out a terror attack. He views this case as politically biased and considers it as the prosecution for his pro-Ukrainian stance.
Simferopol's Kyivsky District Court arrested Prikhodko for two months on October 10. His lawyer appealed this ruling in the Crimean Supreme Court, but the date of hearing the appeal is unclear yet.