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Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko were detained in Simferopol

The day before - on 9 May 2014 - the Ukrainian activist Hennadi Afanasiev, who knew Sentsov and Kolchenko, was arrested by the FSB in Simferopol. He had to face the same prosecutors’ accusations. He decided to cooperate with the Russian services, pleaded guilty and gave testimony against Sentsov and Kolchenko. In December 2014, during a closed hearing in Moscow, the court sentenced him to seven years in prison. During Sentsov and Kolchenko trial, Afanasiev was a prosecution’s witness, but he unexpectedly cancelled his earlier testimony on July 31, 2015, and declared that he was tortured during the investigation. In June 2016, Afanasiev was acquitted by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and exchanged for Ukrainian citizens accused of supporting pro-Russian separatism.