A Ukrainian man who held 13 people hostage inside a bus with a firearm and explosives in the northwestern town of Lutsk for 12 hours in 2020 has been handed a 13-year prison term.
A court in Lutsk sentenced 46-year-old Maksym Kryvosh on September 26 after finding him guilty of hostage-taking, illegal weapon use, conducting an act of terrorism, and the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.
Kryvosh threw a piece of soap at the judge and shouted that he was innocent while the judge was reading out the sentence. Kryvosh said he does not plan to appeal the sentence.
Kryvosh, a native of the city of Dubno and a resident of Lutsk who has a criminal record and was once treated at a psychiatric center, has said that the hostage-taking on July 21, 2020, was "a performance."
Physiatrists concluded that Kryvosh was mentally fit to stand trial.
Police said earlier that, while holding hostages, Kryvosh ranted against "the system" in his negotiations, called the nation's oligarchs and officials "terrorists," and demanded that people watch the 2005 documentary film Earthlings about the suffering endured by animals at farms, research labs, and other locations.
Nobody was hurt in the 12-hour ordeal.
