Norway has released all four Russians who flew the drone from pretrial detention. The reason is the decision of the district court in Tromssa, which dismissed the charges against the two drone pilots.
The district court in Tromssa ended up with the opposite interpretation to the previous district courts in Oslo and Hordaland, which sentenced two Russians to life imprisonment for flying a drone in Norway, says the Norwegian public radio station NRK (you will switch to another service).
In Oslo, the sentence was four, and in the case of Hordaland, three months of unconditional imprisonment.
The district court in Tromssa dismissed the charges, one of which related to filming with a drone in Viippuvuori and the other in Kirkkonime on Norway’s eastern border.
As a result of Tromssa’s acquittal, all four Russian drone men who were put in pretrial detention and tried in Norway for months were immediately set free.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether the flight ban applies to drones.
Another acquitted of the charges in Tromsø is a Russian-British dual citizen, a billionaire who filmed in Svalbard last summer Andrei Yakunin.
Another person who was acquitted had used a drone to photograph the port of Kirkkoniemi in Norway, a shipyard, a closed iron mine and an airport last fall.
According to NRK (you switch to another service) The district court in Tromsø considered that the Russian ban does not apply to flying small drones.
A preliminary decision is expected
According to the interpretation of the Oslo and Hordaland district courts, the Russians’ flight ban also applied to flying a drone. In November, the courts handed down unconditional prison sentences of four and three months.
The Russian man convicted in Oslo flew a drone in different parts of Norway a total of 47 times between last August and October. The man convicted by the Hordaland district court flew a drone in 16 different places last October.
The prosecutors who were previously convicted and now lost their cases are appealing to higher courts, which are expected to issue a policy on the application of the flight ban to drones.
Convicted and accused Russian drone operators have admitted to the flight, but denied that they were guilty of the crime. They have also claimed that they had no information about the flight ban, and the Norwegian border authorities did not tell them about the flight ban, even though they saw the drone in the luggage at the border inspection.
According to NRK, the security police PST has demanded an absolute prison sentence of at least three months for the men for preventive reasons.
The freedom of interpretation of the flight ban and the unconditional prison sentences have sparked debate. Some legal scholars have criticized the sentences as disproportionately harsh.
According to NRK, the Supreme Court will decide in due course whether Norway’s flight ban for Russians in accordance with EU sanctions also applies to flying drones in Norway.
Read also:
Norway hands out prison sentences to Russian drone operators – according to the security police, the harsh sentences are a warning to others
Discuss the topic on 13.12. until 11 p.m. You can create a ID here.