Putin doubts Oksana Sevastidi's guilt

Oksana Sevastidi, a resident of Sochi, convicted of treason after sending an SMS message about movement of military equipment, had hardly disclosed any state secrets, Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested today, promising to sort out the details of her case.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 3 this year Oksana Sevastidi was sentenced to seven years in colony for sending an SMS message that she witnessed transportation of some military equipment in the direction of Abkhazia.

Vladimir Putin, while answering today at the press conference a question of the reporter of the Russia Today TV Channel about a too severe verdict to Sevastidi, has treated it as a "tough approach", the RAPSI (Russian Agency of Legal and Judicial Information) reports.

"In my opinion, it's really a quite tough approach... I'll try to deal with it," the RAPSI quotes the president as saying.

Mr Putin has stressed that he will try to understand the essence of charges brought against Sevastidi, the "Interfax" writes, further quoting the President: "Honestly, I don't know the details. But if she had written anything in her SMS message, she wrote about what she saw; everyone saw it; therefore, it was no great secret."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.