On Monday, a Ukrainian court found Oleksandr Chernov, a whistleblower in the NGO Slava Ukraini corruption investigation, guilty of having owned illegal weapons, Postimees reports. Chernov considers the criminal case against him to be fabricated.
Pavlohrad City Court in Ukraine sentenced Chernov to two years' probation, according to a report by Estonian news outlet Postimees.
However, Postimees considers the decision a minor victory for Chernov, as Dmytro Ocheretainy, state prosecutor for the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, had demanded in the court of first instance that he be sentenced to five years in prison.
"As things stand, the best outcome is that I was not sentenced to prison but given a suspended sentence," Chernov told Postimees.
After reading the court's decision, Chernov said that none of his nor his lawyer's conclusions and evidence had been taken into account by the court and that he would definitely appeal the guilty verdict.
Fingerprints on grenades are the main piece of evidence against Chernov who denies having owned illegal weapons, Postimees previously reported.
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