In Tromsø, the district court has heard two charges this week related to drones, also called photography copters.
A 50-year-old Russian man is accused of illegally flying a drone in Norway. The security police PST demands three months of unconditional imprisonment for the man. The matter was reported by the Norwegian broadcasting company NRK (you will switch to another service) (you switch to an external service).
Norwegian security police arrested the man last October at Tromsø airport while he was on his way to Svalbard.
The police’s investigation revealed that the man had used a drone to photograph from the air the Norwegian port of Kirkkoniemi, the shipyard and the currently closed iron mine last fall.
The man has said that he is an employee of the Russian Environmental and Nuclear Power Authority and that he was on his way to Barentsburg in Finland to check the Russian mining operations there.
According to the man, flying a drone in Kirkkoniemi was a hobby.
According to the security police, unconditional imprisonment is necessary
According to the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK, the prosecutor and the security police do not suspect the man of espionage or intelligence. According to PST, the man’s employment relationship with the Russian Environmental and Nuclear Power Authority is also not relevant in the case.
A lawyer from the Norwegian Security Police interviewed by NRK by Kathrine Tonstad according to the police consider the man to have been flying a drone and filming as a hobby, and it is nothing more.
Imprisonment is required for preventive reasons.
– Unconditional imprisonment is necessary to avoid future cases where Russian citizens fly drones in Norway, says Tonstad in an interview with NRK.
The border authorities let the man and his drone into Norway, but did not tell about the flight ban
The accused has said that when he arrived in Norway from Russia, the authorities at the Storskog border station checked all his luggage, including the drone.
The authorities did not react to the drone in the luggage in any way, and did not inform about the flight ban. According to the accused’s defense lawyer, the man could therefore not have known about the ban.
The Russian billionaire’s drone flying in Huippuvuori is also in court
This week, the district court in Tromssa will also deal with the charge against a billionaire with dual Russian and British citizenship Andrei Yakunin against.
According to NRK, Jakunin is claimed to be Vladimir Putin the son of a close Russian businessman. Evening messages (you switch to another service) including the accused’s father Vladimir Yakunin is the former CEO of Russian Railways and Putin’s friend from the KGB days. According to The Guardian, he is on the sanctions list of the United States and Britain as a close ally of Putin.
Andrei Jakunin’s charge concerns the prohibited flying of a drone in Norway’s Svalbard. According to NRK (you switch to another service) district court Jakun’s case is of interest to the international media, in Tromssa the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have followed the trial.
The prosecutor demands an unconditional prison sentence of four months for Jakunin.
According to the defense lawyers, Jakunin has been allowed to Norway as a British citizen. Jakunin sailed to Huippuvuori on a boat under the British flag.
According to the defense, the flight ban cannot apply to a British or Russian citizen, because both countries are parties to the Summit Agreement.
If the prosecutors’ interpretation of the flight ban wins, it will also apply to the six thousand Russian-Norwegian dual citizens living in Norway, according to the defense.
According to the defense, Jakunin made an enviably wonderful nature video from Huippuvuori, for which the prosecutor is now demanding a harsh punishment. The prosecutor showed the video at the trial and you can watch it on NRK’s news story. (you switch to another service)
According to the prosecutor, the British passport is not relevant in the case and the flight ban imposed on Russian citizens also applies to Väää.
The flight ban was imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine
Last February, Norway banned Russian citizens from flying in Norwegian airspace. The ban was imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine.
During the fall, several Russians have been arrested in Norway for flying a drone without permission. The accused have already been in pretrial detention for the second month.
At least two people have been given an unconditional prison sentence for violating the no-fly zone.
Last week, the Hordaland district court in southern Norway sentenced a Russian man to 90 days of unconditional imprisonment.
The harshest punishment so far has been handed down this week at the Oslo district court, which gave 120 days of unconditional imprisonment to a Russian man who made 47 drone flights in various parts of Norway last fall.
The Russian drone operators have defended themselves by saying that they did not know about the flight ban.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed its indignation at the sentence for the Norwegian ambassador in Moscow. The Russian administration thinks it’s Russophobia.
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