RusNews journalist Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for spreading fake news about the Russian army.
Such a verdict was passed by the district court of Barnaul. The journalist was arrested in April 2022, the reason for initiating the case was her post on the Instagram social network (owned by Meta: recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) about the shelling of the drama theater in Mariupol. At the same time, the state prosecution requested nine years in prison for Ponomarenko.
In addition, the court forbade Mary to engage in journalistic activities for five years.
The defense will appeal the verdict, says Maria Ponomarenko’s lawyer Dmitry Shitov:
“The defense cannot be satisfied with the verdict because we asked for an acquittal. We do not agree with this verdict, we believe that there is no corpus delicti. The corpus delicti is absent primarily due to the absence of deliberate falsity. When Maria wrote this post, it looked truthful to her. And we believe that the investigation failed to prove this deliberate falsity, she did not falsify the photographs. As she took this news in the Ukrainian public, she relayed it in the same way. She was diagnosed with a personality disorder during a forensic psychiatric examination.”
Lawyer Dmitry Shitov also explained that the police could not find out from which IP address the post that caused the case was published. Law enforcement officials explained this by saying that Instagram is a hostile organization that does not respond to requests from the Russian police.
The journalist of the Barnaul publication amic.ru Anton Degtyarev followed the process of Maria Ponomarenko:
“They talk mostly in a negative light about her. She spoke out during covid against wearing masks, against epidemiological restrictions, and since then she has become a scandalous woman, and this is how she was treated. But now, probably, the case has become more serious, many feel sorry for her, because they believe that the sentence is very severe. Six years is still a lot, especially before that they asked for nine. About nine years in general they thought that very, very much. She is presented mainly as a journalist, but in reality she is more of an activist.”
Ponomareva was transferred to the pre-trial detention center in Barnaul in May. According to the lawyer, in the cell of Maria, who suffers from claustrophobia, the only window was covered with gray tape. In September, the journalist broke it, for which she was sent to a punishment cell.