A Volovets court has found three defendants guilty in a case of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl in Zakarpattia and sentenced them to 6 years in prison. The victim's lawyers are awaiting an appeal and say that the fight continues, UNN reports.
Today, a judge of the Volovets District Court announced the verdict that the whole of Ukraine had been waiting for. The defendants in the case of sexual abuse of a girl in Zakarpattia received real prison sentences. The court sentenced each defendant to 6 years in prison. The court did not find any grounds to release the defendants from punishment with a probationary period
The court also partially satisfied the civil claim of the injured party. Of the claimed UAH 450 thousand of moral damages, the court recovered UAH 300 thousand from the defendants, as the defendants had already reimbursed part of the amount.
"There will most likely be an appeal. So our fight continues," the lawyers added.
Recall
In the summer of 2021, in the village of Verkhni Vorota in Zakarpattia, three teenagers raped a 14-year-old girl and recorded it on video, which they later sent to their peers.
Three of the defendants pleaded guilty in court, and the district court sentenced them to five years in prison, but then commuted the sentence to a two-year suspended sentence.
The verdict was passed under Article 153 of the Criminal Code (sexual violence without penetration), not Article 152 (rape).
During the trial, the victim's rights were violated - the trial was held without her lawyer, and her interests were represented by the local child protection service, which itself provided positive characteristics of the accused.
Subsequently, the Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets took control of this case.
In October 2024, the case gained even more publicity, as it became known from social media that two young men aged 18, who are suspects in the case, wanted to mobilize through the Obukhiv military training center to avoid punishment.
The Ministry of Defense responded to this and stated that "the suspects in this serious crime were denied mobilization to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.