The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don will hear the case on the Crimean bridge explosion that occurred in October 2022 behind closed doors, Interfax reports.
The decision to close the trial was made due to the presence of documents marked "secret" in the case materials, the agency writes.
The defendants in the case include Artem Azatyan, Georgy Azatyan, Oleg Antipov, Alexander Bilin, Vladimir Zloba, Dmitry Tyazhelikh, Roman Solomko and Artur Terchanyan. They are charged with terrorism and illegal trafficking in weapons or explosives.
According to the Russian investigation, the first deputy head of the SBU, Vasily Malyuk, created a group with the aim of committing a terrorist act and "organized the production of an explosive device on Ukrainian territory, disguised as a cargo of polyethylene construction foil."
On October 8, 2022, a truck exploded on the Crimean Bridge. The truck driver and four other people died.
Russian security forces have arrested eight people on charges of blowing up the Crimean Bridge; all of them were detained within a week of the explosion.
The lawyers and relatives of the arrested people insist that the people came for questioning themselves, lived in a hotel at their own expense at the request of the special services and tried to help the investigation, insisting on their innocence.
"A group of random people who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time", "those who were captured, roughly speaking, were brought to criminal liability" - this is how the lawyers described the situation.