Belgorod shooter's lawyer appeals against life sentence

A lawyer has appealed against the verdict on "Belgorod shooter" Sergei Pomazun, sentenced to life imprisonment, a court official confirmed on Thursday. "The Belgorod region court has received lawyer Viktor Yeremeyev's appeal," court spokeswoman Irina Sazonova told Itar-Tass. Earlier this week, Yeremeyev told Itar-Tass he disagreed with the wording that the mental status of his client "cannot be doubted." In his opinion, no full-fledged expert examination has been carried out and it has to be done at a specialized facility. "On top of that, additional information was released during the trial, such as the testimony by Pomazun's parents which had not been included in the investigator's section of the case materials, and the report on his inadequate behavior during the trial is missing as well," the lawyer noted. On August 23, prosecutor for the state Dmitry Lazarev told Itar-Tass he was satisfied with life sentence for Pomazun. "The court agreed with the classification of the crime and refused to recognize Pomazun as insane," the prosecutor said, praising the investigator's professionalism. Pomazun was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of six people. Also, the court ruled on collecting from him three million roubles in damages to the victims' families. On April 22, Pomazun shot and killed three people in a hunting shop in central Belgorod. Then he stole weapons and ammunition, left the shop and killed three more people, including two schoolgirls. The shooting spree was captured by CCTV cameras. He was detained near the Belgorod railway station in the evening of the following day. He stabbed a police officer several times as he was being detained. Pomazun was charged with murder of two or more persons for hooligan motives, concealing crimes, illegal turnover of weapons, theft of weapons and ammunition, an attempted murder of law-enforcement officer. Pomazun was released from prison in December 2012 after serving a four-year sentence for theft.