The verdict was for violations of the entry ban.
Kymenlaakso the district court sentenced a 37-year-old suspect of war crimes on Tuesday by Voislav Torden for two violations of the entry ban. He received a 40-day suspended sentence.
The verdict came from two separate situations at the Vaalimaa border crossing in Virolahti. Torden arrived in Finland by car both times.
Torden was banned from entering the Schengen area by Norway. The entry ban was imposed in 2016 under his former name Jan Petrovskiand it is valid until next year.
Voislav Torden, a Russian citizen, has served as a fighter and second-in-command of the Rusiš weapon group. It has been characterized as a neo-Nazi group and has been fighting in Ukraine on the side of Russian-backed separatists since 2014. It also has links to the mercenary group Wagner.
The first one the time for committing the violation of the entry ban is August 2022. At that time, Torden traveled with a single-entry visa issued by Greece. He returned to Russia through the same border crossing a few days later.
The second time was last July. That time he arrived with a visa issued by Finland, which entitles him to a long-term stay.
In court, Torden denied the charges and said he did not know about his entry ban. He said that he had been deported from Norway to Russia at the end of 2016 before the entry ban was imposed and that he never received a written decision about the ban.
According to Torden, his lawyer had said that if an entry ban is imposed, it usually lasts for 3-5 years. He said that he assumed that the ban was no longer valid – also because his visa application was approved last year and the year before.
The district court considered that Torden could have found out about the content and duration of the entry ban by contacting his lawyer or, for example, the Norwegian authorities. Regarding the granted visas, the court noted that Torden had not given his previous name when applying for them and had answered in the negative when he had been asked about a possible previous ban on entering the Schengen area.
Thunderstorm was arrested in Finland on July 20 at the gate of a flight to Nice, France, when a border guard patrol was carrying out foreigner control there.
Ukraine asked Finland to extradite Torden as a suspect of terrorist crimes. However, the Supreme Court ruled last December that he cannot be extradited to Ukraine due to prison conditions in the country.
The Central Criminal Police is currently investigating whether Torden has committed war crimes in Ukraine.
The subject of the investigation is the acts committed against Ukrainian soldiers who were wounded or surrendered before the current war in eastern Ukraine in connection with the armed conflict. The actions are suspected to meet the hallmarks of a war crime.
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