The CEO of a Danish company was sentenced on Tuesday to four months suspended prison sentence and two of the group’s companies to nearly five million euros in fines for violating the European embargo on Syria by selling kerosene to the Russian Air Force.
The court in Odense, in central Denmark, found the Dan-Bunkering company and its parent company Bunker Holding, specialized in fuel trading, guilty of having sold 33 times between 2015 and 2017 a total of 172,000 approximately tons of kerosene to two Russian companies.
A rare trial
These large quantities of fuel, worth nearly 90 million euros, were then delivered to Syria, where they were used by Russian warplanes in the country.
The two Danish companies were fined a total of 34 million crowns (4.6 million euros). Bunker Holding CEO Keld Demant was given a suspended four-month prison sentence.
He left the court without commenting, noted an AFP journalist.
In this rare trial for violation of the European embargo in Syria, the prosecution requested two years in prison against the leader of the group and 400 million crowns fine.
The company’s lawyers and its manager pleaded not guilty, believing they could not control the use made by their Russian clients, who were not subject to sanctions.
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