Sentence In Yet Another Hazing Case Made In Hrodna

The sergeant and the corporal beat the soldiers.

In Hrodna, a trial was held against two servicemen charged with exceeding the power associated with violence in the military service, writes tut.by. The victims are five soldiers. They claimed that the sergeant and the corporal beat them. The case was considered by the court of the Hrodna region. The soldiers were found guilty and taken into custody in the courtroom.

The defendants are Sergeant Uladzislau Yelets and corporal Maksim Malyshka. They served in the 6th separate mechanized brigade, which is located in the Hrodna microdistrict Faliush.

The sergeant was found guilty of exceeding the power associated with violence and sentenced to 4 years in a maximum security penal colony. The corporal was found guilty of complicity and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony.

Uladzislau, at the time of the announcement of the sentence, had already served in the army, and Maksim had several days left to the demobilization. After the criminal case was opened in October 2017, the suspected servicemen were transferred to other units. Now they are taken into custody. Also, soldiers were deprived of all military ranks.

In the case of hazing, four hearings were held. The victims said that early in the morning in August 2017 during the field exercises at the Gozhsky training ground they were woken up, lined up and beaten. They were at that time performing duties of stove-setters and should have watched the stoves in an army tent where 30 people slept. They were on duty by turns. However, one of the soldiers fell asleep, and the fire in the stoves went out. One of the accused woke up, saw that the man on duty was asleep. The sergeant and the corporal, as follows from the materials of the case, decided that it was cold in the field barracks, and wanted to punish the guilty. All of the stove-setters -there were five of them-were awakened and lined up near the tent. Then they beat him.

True, the testimony of the victims differed. Some said that they were beaten on the shoulders and torso, and also by with a belt on the buttocks. By the way, this belt is the only material evidence in the case. According to the investigation, Malyshka gave it to Yelets, and the latter beat the soldiers with it.

The accused did not admit their guilt, but in the last word Maksim Malyshka briefly told about the events of that night. He said that he had woken up from the cold with other soldiers, he had not lined anyone in the street, but simply went out with everyone to find out what had happened. According to him, no one beat thesoldiers or forced them to do push-ups, as the victims said during the trial.

During the debate, the victims asked the judge not to prosecute the corporal and the sergeant. The prosecutor demanded 4 years in a maximum security penal colony for Yelets, and 3 years and 6 months of the same - for Malyshka. The court agreed with the prosecution's arguments. The lawyers of the convicts have 10 days to appeal the verdict, and they intend to do it.

Important to note, inspections were carried out in the Belarusian military units after the tragedy in Pechy, when the body of 21-year-old private Korzhych was found in the basement of the medical department of the military unit.