A court in St. Petersburg sentenced Daria Trepova to 27 years in prison in the case of the murder of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, conveys Sever.Realii correspondent. Trepova was found guilty on three counts – committing a terrorist attack by a group of persons resulting in death, illegal trafficking in explosives and forgery of documents.
The prosecution asked that Trepova be sentenced to 28 years in prison.
The explosion that killed Tatarsky occurred in a cafe in St. Petersburg on April 2 last year. Dozens of people were injured. Many victims filed civil claims against Trepova, the total amount of which reaches 50 million rubles.
26-year-old Daria Trepova was detained the day after the explosion and has been in pre-trial detention since then. Shortly before the explosion, she handed Tatarsky a figurine, in which, according to investigators, an explosive device was embedded.
According to investigators, Trepova was part of a criminal group supervised from the territory of Ukraine. FSB earlier called Ukrainian citizen Yuri Denisov was one of the organizers of the explosion. It was alleged that a role in its organization was played by a journalist living in Ukraine, the former leader of the Moscow branch of the National Bolshevik Party banned in Russia, Roman Popkov. The investigation claims that Trepova received about 190 thousand rubles from him for a crypto wallet.
Trepova claims that, by agreement with Popkov, she met Tatarsky and went to meetings with him under a false name in order to gain his trust. According to Trepova, handing over the statuette was part of a task for which she was promised a job as a journalist in Ukraine. According to the convict, she did not know that the figurine contained explosives.
- Trepova’s husband wrote an appeal addressed to Popkov asking him to tell how he and people associated with him could deceive his wife and convince her to take a figurine with explosives to a meeting with Tatarsky. Popkov did not admit to involvement in the murder of the blogger, which he called an “operation,” but did not deny it either.
- Trepova stated from the first court hearing that she did not agree with the charges of terrorism and trafficking in explosives. The accused was added to the register of extremists and terrorists.
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