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Russian Investigation Committee insists on prosecution of Kaliningrad schoolgirl’s assailants

The case was opened on the attempted murder charges and suspects were taken into custody

MOSCOW, April 8 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Investigation Committee will insist on prosecution of the assailants of a teenager girl in Kaliningrad although a local prosecutor has dropped the case.

“The Russian Investigation Committee chairman saw the cruel beating of the underage girl posted online and ordered the head of the Committee’s Kaliningrad regional department to request the regional prosecutor’s office for opening the case,” Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said on Sunday.

The case was opened on the attempted murder charges and suspects were taken into custody. Yet a local prosecutor overruled the decision.

“The Russian Investigation Committee chairman ordered to challenge the prosecutor’s order at higher instances. The order will be challenged at the Kaliningrad regional prosecutor’s office on Monday,” he said. “The Russian Investigation Committee will challenge this decision at higher instances, up to the Prosecutor General. The Russian Investigation Committee and its chairman have the principled position: not a single offender of children must go unpunished.”

The parents of Lena Sukhorukova came to the Gusevsky district police department on March 23 to report that their daughter was beaten by two 14-year-old schoolgirls, whose friends shot the beating on their mobile phones. The recording was posted online.

The police refused to open a criminal case at first because the suspected assailants were immune from prosecution due to their young age. The Kaliningrad regional department of the Russian Investigation Committee asked the regional prosecutor’s office to cancel that decision. A criminal case was opened on Saturday on a more serious charge – an attempted murder. This crime is punishable already since the age of 14.