VILNIUS, May 30 (RIA Novosti) – A 24-year-old Lithuanian woman was found guilty on Thursday of plotting a suicide bombing attack in Russia, but she walked free from court because she had already served her sentence while in pretrial detention.
Egle Kusaite was detained at a bus terminal in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas in October 2009. She initially confessed to planning a suicide bombing in Russia, but later withdrew her testimony saying it was made under duress.
The woman, a convert to Islam, claimed that she had fallen victim to a provocation by Lithuanian state security services, which had been trying to frame her for several years.
A court in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius found Kusaite guilty of plotting a terrorist attack, but cleared her from charges of setting up a criminal group. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison, the mildest sentence possible, though Prosecutor Mindaugas Duda requested a 10-year jail term.
The verdict can be appealed within 20 days.
Prosecutors said Kusaite purchased a book on how to make explosives and discussed her attack plan with Chechen siblings living in Russia. A Russian court sentenced the siblings, Apti and Aishat Magomadov, to two and six years in a penal colony in December 2009.
