Ukraine court jails man for life over nationalist ex-lawmaker's murder
Kyiv, Ukraine: A Ukrainian court on Thursday handed a life sentence to a 20-year-old man over the 2024 murder of prominent former nationalist lawmaker Iryna Farion.
Farion, 60, who briefly served as a parliamentarian for the ultra-nationalist Svoboda party, was shot in the head near her flat in Lviv on July 19.
A court in Lviv found the suspect, 18 at the time of the crime, guilty of premeditated murder driven by national intolerance.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office stated the convicted man held views about alleged national discrimination against Russian-speaking citizens.
Authorities reported he viewed Farion, known for her public defense of the Ukrainian language, as someone who allegedly undermined national unity.
Farion was a professor specialising in Ukrainian language at Lviv's Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as a YouTube blogger.
She frequently chided officials and military personnel for speaking Russian rather than Ukrainian.
She was fired from her academic position in 2023 after students protested comments she made insulting military brigades, including the revered Azov unit.
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