Russian judge continues to read verdict in trial of Ukrainian pilot

By Staff The Associated Press

Posted March 22, 2016 4:46 am EST

1 min read

This article is more than 8 years old and some information may not be up to date.

Journalists, who were not let in a courtroom, make photos of a TV screen showing a glass cage where Nadezhda Savchenko sits, in a town of Donetsk, Rostov-on-Don region, Monday, March 21, 2016. A judge in the border Russian town is expected to deliver a verdict in the case of Ukrainian pilot Savchenko, charged with complicity to murder in the deaths of two Russian journalists in warring eastern Ukraine. The judge in Savchenko's trial is expected to begin reading the verdict on Monday but the sentencing is likely to be announced on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev).

DONETSK, Russia – A Ukrainian pilot who is charged with complicity to murder in the deaths of two Russian journalists in war-torn eastern Ukraine has arrived to court in southwestern Russia where the verdict in her trial is to continue.

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Nadezhda Savchenko served in a volunteer battalion against Russia-backed rebels and was captured by separatist rebels in July 2014 in eastern Ukraine before she surfaced in Russia under disputed circumstances.

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The Ukrainian government says Savchenko is a prisoner of war and should be released under current truce agreements in eastern Ukraine.

Prosecutors, who say Savchenko called in co-ordinates for the shelling that killed two journalists and several civilians in July 2014, have asked for a 23-year sentence in her case. Savchenko’s lawyers have said they think a conviction is certain.