The Dnipro Court of Appeal has upheld the sentence of a 46-year-old man sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and sexual abuse of an 8-year-old girl in the Kharkiv region. This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General, according to UNN.
The convict attempted to appeal the decision of the court of first instance and requested an acquittal. However, prosecutors from the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office confirmed the legality of the sentence, the appropriateness of the punishment, and the sufficiency of the evidence on which the court's decision was based in the appeal,
In August 2022, in one of the settlements of the Izium district in the Kharkiv region, the man, while intoxicated, saw an 8-year-old girl on the street. To lure the child away, he fabricated a story about searching for an acquaintance and a supposedly lost phone. The man then led the victim to a forest belt, where he raped her. The child resisted and tried to escape, but the offender used physical force and threatened the girl with physical violence if she told anyone about what happened. Additionally, he promised to give her 5,000 hryvnias for her silence.
When the convict fell asleep, the victim managed to escape. She ran to the nearest checkpoint and reported the crime to the military, who then called law enforcement.
"This case concerns an especially grave crime against a defenseless child and the accountability of an individual who had already been convicted of similar acts. The convict asked the court of appeal to acquit him, but the prosecution confirmed the legality of the sentence and the sufficiency of the evidence. Life imprisonment in this case is a just and necessary punishment,"