The justice of the European Union canceled on Wednesday the sanctions imposed on the mother of the head of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Reuters reports.
The European Commission added the woman to the bloc’s sanctions list a day before the Russian invasion began on February 24 last year, arguing that her business relationship with her son made her complicit in Moscow’s aggression.
“The General Court annuls the restrictive measures imposed on Mrs. Violeta Prigozhina (…) in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the second highest court of the EU announced on Wednesday.
“Even if [Evgheni Prigojin] is responsible for actions that undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, the connection between Mrs. Prigozhina and her son, established at the time of the adoption of the contested measures, is based only on their kinship, and therefore does not justify her inclusion in the contested list,” – the court motivated the decision.
How did the EU justify the introduction of sanctions against the mother of mercenary Wagner
During the sanctions, the European Commission stated that Prigozhina played a role in the actions of her son, who received contracts from the Russian Ministry of Defense back in 2014, after the illegal annexation of Crimea. Yevgeny Prigozhin denied any connection with the Kremlin or Wagner mercenaries for 8 years, only in the fall of 2022 he admitted that he founded a paramilitary group.
Prigozhina’s lawyers claimed that the EU did not indicate the reasons for her inclusion in the list, and that the sanction was imposed on her only to put pressure on her son.
“From her connections with his son, it is not possible to draw a legal conclusion that she could contribute to compromising the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the General Court of the EU also stated.
The decision can be appealed to the European Court of Justice, the European Union’s highest court, and a commission led by Ursula von der Leyen says it is currently analyzing the decision.
Source: Hot News
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