Posted on 06/24/2008 5:59:22 AM PDT by Between the Lines
MOSCOW, June 23 (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow City Court ruled on Monday to release a U.S. pastor from prison changing his earlier sentence of more than three years for illegally bringing ammunition in Russia to a 10-month suspended sentence.
Moscow's lower district court sentenced Phillip Miles, 58, to three years and two months in prison in April for smuggling rifle rounds, declarable under Russian customs law, into the country for his Russian hunting partner.
Miles's defense attorney appealed the ruling as "severe and inadequate" and sought his acquittal, citing an absence of criminal intent.
"Documents for his release will be sent to the detention center, and Miles will be released today or tomorrow," the presiding judge said.
Speaking to the judges via a video link from jail on Monday, Miles pleaded for the court not to ruin his life for the sake of one pack of bullets.
Miles, of the Christ Community Church in Conway, South Carolina, was caught with a box of twenty 300-caliber rifle cartridges after landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on January 29.
Miles, who stayed with his friend in the city of Perm when visiting Russia, said earlier the rounds were for his friend's lever-action Winchester rifle, an antique item that is rare in Russia. The two men are both keen hunters, and had hunting licenses.
The defense team provided letters from Russia's human rights ombudsman and 62 members of U.S. Congress with requests for the cleric's acquittal.
"Does a priest, who has served people for 30 years absolving their sins, have to be isolated from society," lawyer Vladimir Ryakhovsky said in the courtroom.
The court was earlier skeptical over the pastor's claims that he did not know he had to declare ammunition being brought into the country.
The lawyer earlier cited "the differences between instructions on items declarable in Sheremetyevo airport in the Russian and English languages" as an argument in his client's favor.
I thought they weren’t after duck hunters......
Russian or domestic Reds are all the same.
Deer hunters. You don’t hunt ducks with a 30-30. Unless maybe you are John Kerry, who hunts deer crawling on his belly with a double barrel 12 ga.
Russian Customs: The following items are necessary to declare and are subject to special permission valid in Russia when bringing in (and out): apparels, guns, explosives, ammunition....
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