TULA. May 2 (Interfax) - The Proletarsky District court in Tula has delivered a guilty verdict in a forgery case involving a fake car registration document that features in the murder case of journalist Darya Dugina.
Andrei Kuznetsov and Alexander Suchkov were charged under the Criminal Code article regarding forgery, manufacture or circulation of forged documents, state awards, stamps, seals or forms, with a view to concealing another crime or facilitating the commission thereof, the press service for the regional prosecutor's office said in a statement to Interfax on Tuesday.
"The court sentenced the defendants to three years and six months' imprisonment at a medium-security correctional facility," the statement said.
They were also banned from website administration and messaging applications on electronic and information-telecommunications networks for a period of two years and six months.
The prosecutor had asked the court to sentence both men to three years and eleven months of imprisonment at a medium-security facility.
According to the press service for the regional Judicial Department, Kuznetsov, who is in custody until August 22, will remain in detention; Suchkov, who was banned from travel, was arrested in the courtroom.
In court, both men partly pleaded guilty. They claimed they had been unaware that the fabricated vehicle document would be used for concealment of another crime and crossing Russia's border.
Materials in the proceeding indicate that Suchkov, acting together with Kuznetsov made an electronic template of an official Ukrainian document, the registration for a Mini Cooper, in August 2022.
According to court files, between August 17 and 21, 2022, the document was used while traveling around Russia and later when crossing the border.
Investigators believe the fake document facilitated the murder of Darya Dugina.
Dugina's car was blown up near Bolshiye Vyazemy in the Moscow region on the evening of August 20, 2022. She died instantly.
Video surveillance "gives documentary evidence that the crime's perpetrator, Ukrainian citizen Natalya Pavlovna Vovk, born in 1979, personally followed Dugina at the parking lot for guests of the Tradition festival," it said. After committing the crime, "Vovk left together with her daughter for Estonia via the Pskov region," the Federal Security Service said.
It also said that the crime was devised by Ukrainian security services.