Calls for conviction of Ukrainians accused of threatening Russian shopkeeper

The Public Prosecutor’s Office requested, on Friday, in the Braga Court, the conviction of the seven Ukrainian immigrants who were tried for inciting hatred and violence for allegedly threatening and harassing a Russian shopkeeper inside her store in Braga.

The magistrate said that the accusation was proven and he asked for suspended sentences, and in some cases, light sentences. The MP’s request was followed by the shopkeeper’s lawyer Marta Carneiro who recalled that, after the incident, her constituent was afraid to leave the house.

The defense lawyers, Rui Marado Moreira and Miguel Brito, countered that the Ukrainians went to the Troika store, located in S. Vicente, using the right to assembly and demonstration enshrined in the Constitution: “any citizen has the right to be indignant when someone , in this case, the trader Natalya Sverlova, displays in her space the flag of the former Soviet Union, which so oppressed the Ukrainian people, as evidenced by the three million deaths in the Holodomor and which reminds them of fascism”.

“False” accusation

Rui Moreira scalped the accusation, which he called “false”, saying that the videos that were attached to the process, “demonstrate, without a doubt, that the shopkeeper was not threatened, nor insulted and that she even had time to record what was happening. he spent it with his cell phone, while talking to the seven, who were actually his customers”.

He said that the group did not act in an organized manner to intimidate the trader, and that he only asked her to remove the Soviet flag from the wall and that of a brigade that even participated in the invasion of Ukraine. “They even asked him to sell it”, she stressed, highlighting that one of the defendants has a son on the war front.

He also guaranteed that everything went peacefully, with the shopkeeper moving freely within the space and talking to the Ukrainians.

Miguel Brito recalled that one of the defendants, a priest, was a customer at the store and had been there the day before to buy chorizo ​​and vodka: “There were no acts of hate, that was a manifestation of indignation that cannot be considered a crime!”

The indictment says that, on March 7, 2022, and to take revenge for the Russian invasion of February 24, they went to the store and were told it was “a p..!” and that he should “return to his land”. They then published a video on Facebook, which led to several hateful comments from other Ukrainians.