Sacred Haven of Debauchery

The verdict against three police officers convicted of raping a woman in a police car has been overturned in Yekaterinburg.

The Sverdlovsk Regional Court overturned the verdict against three police officers in the case of the rape of a woman in a police car. This was reported to Mediazona by lawyer Alexei Bushmakov, who cooperates with the human rights organization Zona Prava.

The case has been sent for a new trial in the court of first instance. The reason for this decision is not yet known, as the court only announced the operative part of the decision, the lawyer added. The arrest of the officers was also lifted, and they were given a ban on certain actions for the duration of the new trial.

In July, the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg sentenced police officers Vyacheslav Tropin and Andrei Bessarabov to six years in prison, and Vadim Mustafin to 6.5 years in prison.

The officers were found guilty of rape committed by a group of persons (paragraph "a" of part 2 of Article 131 of the Criminal Code) and other sexual acts (paragraph "a" of part 2 of Article 132 of the Criminal Code). The prosecutor's office requested up to nine years in prison for them.

According to the court, in August 2019, patrol officers detained a 22-year-old woman from Kazakhstan. They put the woman in a police UAZ vehicle and raped her. The victim said that the officers threatened to take her to the police station and "pass her around."

The defendants were dismissed from the service, and their superiors were also dismissed.