The attorney of Hrachya Harutyunyan—who is in a Moscow prison in connection with a fatal traffic accident outside the Russian capital city—has appealed the recent court verdict.

“We have appealed Harutyunyan’s guilty verdict based on Article 327 [‘knowingly using forged documents’]. He has not committed this crime. We ask for an acquittal with this part [of the charges],” RIA Novosti news agency of Russia quoted Harutyunyan’s attorney Ruben Margaryan as saying.

Armenian citizen Hrachya Harutyunyan had pleaded guilty to causing a major traffic accident in Russia last year. The truck he was driving had crashed into a passenger bus on July 13, 2013 outside Moscow. The impact of the crash was so powerful that the bus had split in two. The accident claimed eighteen lives and injured more than forty others.

On August 4, a Moscow district court sentenced Hrachya Harutyunyan to six years and nine months in prison on charges of “violating traffic and vehicle operation rules, which has unwittingly led to the death of two or more persons,” and “knowingly using forged documents.”