The verdict against Dmitry Chirakadze was handed down by a judge in Milan on May 22, according to Italian news reports.
In closing arguments earlier this month, prosecutors had requested five years for Chirakadze, who has been held by Italian authorities since being arrested at Rome’s airport in June 2024.
Chirakadze’s defense lawyer, Tatiana Della Marra, did not immediately respond to e-mail inquiries for comment.
The verdict is the latest development in a twisting saga involving Uss, whose father previously was the governor of the sprawling Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk.
Uss was arrested at the Milan airport in October 2022, a month after a US grand jury secretly indicted him on smuggling charges.
Along with a Russian business partner and four others, US authorities accused Uss of using a German company to smuggle military and dual-use technologies to Russia in violation of Western sanctions — including the kinds of electronics that later showed up on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Uss was ordered held, pending an Italian court ruling on a US extradition request. However, he was not held in police custody, but rather house arrest, in a townhouse in a development south of Milan.
In March 2023, days before he was set to be extradited, Uss escaped from the townhouse where he was staying, breaking an electronic monitoring bracelet. He was driven across Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and into Belgrade, where he later flew to Moscow and later to Krasnoyarsk.
The escape embarrassed Italian authorities; Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the circumstances behind his flight deserved further scrutiny. It also infuriated US prosecutors, who had warned Italian counterparts that Uss was a flight risk.
In the months that followed, Italian investigators and US authorities identified a group of seven men and women from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Slovenia who they alleged organized Uss’s escape.
A Bosnian man was indicted by US prosecutors in December 2023 in connection with the escape, and arrested in Zagreb. He later cooperated with the Italian investigation and was released. A Slovenian man was arrested by Slovenian police on an Italian warrant in January 2024, and was later released.
Also implicated was a Serbian businessman named Srdjan Lolic, who joined a Russian expedition to the North Pole in April 2023, less than a month after he allegedly helped Uss escape. He traveled via the Krasnoyarsk region.
While at the North Pole, Lolic was seen dancing along with Krasnoyark’s vice governor, and he also bragged about dining with Aleksandr Uss, the region’s governor, and attending an Orthodox mass with him.
After resigning as Krasnoyarsk’s governor, Aleksandr Uss became a lawmaker in Russia’s upper house of parliament.
Meanwhile, in June 2024, Chirakadze was flying from Sardinia to Switzerland, when he was detained at Rome’s airport by Italian police.
In addition to owning a luxury resort in Sardinia, Chirakadze owned a hunting estate in Krasnoyarsk. In Russia, he is best known for his part in establishing Pravo.ru, an online legal publication and resource popular with the Russian legal community.
In closing arguments earlier this month, Milan prosecutor Giovanni Tarzia told the court that Lolic had testified via video conference from Serbia, and implicated a now-deceased Russian lawmaker from Krasnoyarsk.
According to the Milan newspaper Corriere Della Serra, Lolic testified that the dead lawmaker contacted Lolic and asked him to meet with Chirakadze, who prosecutors said was the lead mastermind behind Uss’s escape.
Uss could not be located for comment. However, his Russian lawyer told the business newspaper Vedomosti a day earlier that Chirakadze was not involved in the escape, and he accused Italian authorities of “hostage taking.”
“Chirakadze was organizing Artyom’s legal defense, and obviously could not have had anything to do with his escape from house arrest,” Aleksei Tikhomirov was quoted as saying.