Stavropol Territory: journalist beaten when filming rape report

Yuri Ugryumov, a correspondent of the federal NTV Channel was beaten on April 20 in the city of Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Territory, in the course of filming a report about a rape of a nine-year-old girl. The child was abducted by unidentified persons from the ENT ward of the district hospital of Budyonnovsk and raped.

"I had an arrangement with the victim's mother that she would give an interview because her daughter is in the intensive care ward and cannot communicate with anyone. I arrived at 9:00 p.m. Moscow time on April 20 to the hospital; however, they did not let the mother out to me," said Ugryumov and added that after the hospital staff forbade the meeting, he was approached by two men; one of them was apparently a hospital security. They beat him and broke the video camera.

"According to preliminary data, the nine-year-old girl, who was at the ENT ward of the district hospital of Budyonnovsk, on April 19 at about 1:30 a.m. Moscow time was abducted from the House by unidentified persons and raped. At the present time she is in the intensive care unit. According to investigators, they already have a suspect; the circumstances of the crime are clarified," said a source from the law enforcement bodies of the Stavropol Territory.

According to a girl's relative, a certain 25-year-old man is suspected, about whom it is known only that he lives nearby. The relative said that the hospital staff had apologized to the mother, "they all are running in front of her," but they are categorically against any publicity and exert pressure in this connection, the "Interfax" reports.

According to the source, on April 20, the Budyonnovsk Inter-District Investigatory Division of the Investigatory Department of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) initiated a criminal case on the fact under point "b", part 4, Article 131 of the Criminal Code (rape of a victim under the age of fourteen). The maximum penalty under this Article is 20 years of imprisonment.

The RIA "Novosti" adds that the NTV correspondent submitted an application about his beating to the OVD (Interior Division) of Budyonnovsk.