Sentsov denies the charges and says they are revenge for his opposition of Russia’s takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.
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Acclaimed filmmakers from across the globe have written to Russian President Vladimir Putin expressing concern over the prosecution of Sentsov, an up-and-coming director.
Lokshina said Sentsov is nearly assured to be convicted when the verdict is read on August 25. But once a case moves to trial, the probability of acquittal is very low – much lower than 1 percent.
Russia’s FSB arrested Sentsov, and a co-defendant, in Crimea in May 2014, just after Russian Federation annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.
Amnesty global last month said there were “serious concerns regarding the two men’s rights to a fair trial” due to excessive charges and allegations of torture.
The prison sentence that the prosecutors requested at a hearing in southern Russia on Wednesday is hard by Russian standards.
“For all his crimes I ask that Sentsov be given 23 years in a high security prison”, a state prosecutor told judge Sergei Mikhailyuk in Rostov’s North Caucasus District Military Court, according to RIA Novosti.
He also accused the Russian government of transparently lying about the annexation of Crimea and its role in the war in east Ukraine, saying his “whole jail” was full of former Russian fighters who rode off to Donbass “like heroes, on your tanks and with your weapons”.
Sentsov insists that the case is politically motivated and that Russia has no legal authority to put him on trial – having issued him with a Russian passport without his consent.
On Friday, a court in Rostov will also decide whether Nadia Savchenko, a Ukrainian army helicopter pilot, will be tried for murder in Moscow or the remote border town of Donetsk. Her lawyers say they have proof she was already in Russian custody when the journalists were killed.
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Earlier on Wednesday a court in Pskov sentenced an Estonian security official to 15 years in prison for espionage, drawing condemnation from the west.
