Ukrainian teenager killed in Russian colony because of allegedly being nationalist

One teenager was killed and six more were hospitalized after the employees of the Belorechensk juvenile colony in Russia beat the convicts.

According to the Ukrainian Hromadske.tv, overnight into November 25, Vitaliy Pop and several other convicts were taken to the colony, where the employees beat the newcomers.

“They jumped on our son’s head, hit him on the head and called him a nationalist. They beat him brutally and killed him,” the mother of the killed boy said.

According to parents, the aggression was reasoned by the fact that the boy was the citizen of Ukraine, was born and raised in Zakarpattia region, western Ukraine. The investigating authorities initially insisted on burying him in the Krasnodar region in Russia, allegedly for the needs of the investigation. However, subsequently, the body was given to parents.

Lawyer of the family Oleksandr Popkov informed that the investigators had opened the criminal proceedings under Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (exceeding official powers) and Article 114 of the Criminal Code (infliction of grave injury or injury of average gravity in excess of the requirements of justifiable defence or in excess of the measures needed for the detention of a person who has committed a crime).

The officers of the regional investigation department of the Investigative Committee of Russia reported that the acting head of the colony and six employees had been taken into custody.

As noted by Andriy Babushkin, the human rights activist and the chairman of the interregional public charitable organization “Committee for Civil Rights”, it would be easier to investigate into such incidents if there was a law prohibiting the use of special equipment physical effects by the staff without video recording.

The family moved to Kuban several years ago. Vitaliy came to help his family last summer. According to the neighbors, the teenager got into bad company and took all the blame after the robbery at the store. He was sentenced to 4 years and 8 months in a colony.