Residents of Sabnova demand reclassification of case on death of fellow villager

Two teenagers fatally stabbed a young man after a remark, the case is being investigated under the article on causing grievous bodily harm, one of the suspects has already been released home, residents of a village in the Derbent district said. They demand that the case be reclassified as murder and that the perpetrators be punished.

The official report of the crime in the village of Sabnova in the Derbent district was distributed by the investigative bodies of Dagestan on September 4. A 16-year-old local resident was detained on charges of causing grievous bodily harm, resulting in the death of the victim through negligence (Part 4 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

According to the investigation, on the night of September 4, the teenager stabbed a previously familiar resident of Sabnova twice - in the abdominal cavity and forearm - with whom he had a conflict. The man died in hospital from these wounds, the Investigative Committee of Dagestan said in a statement.

The investigation intends to petition for the arrest of the suspect, the department noted. It follows from the publication that the suspect acted alone, but local residents claim that two young men participated in the crime. The second, according to the villagers, was detained, but then “let go home”.

Residents distributed an appeal to the investigation and a video recording from surveillance cameras in the village: it shows two young men running away from the crime scene after the victim was injured. According to the villagers, the young man was killed “after he made a remark to two young men about the inadmissibility of foul language and littering under the windows.”

“The video recordings clearly show two young men purposefully heading towards the victim’s house. After stabbing him twice, they flee the scene of the crime together. There are serious doubts about the legality of the preliminary classification of the case. The actions of the suspects, namely: their purposeful movement towards the victim’s house at night, the deliberate infliction of fatal wounds on him with a bladed weapon and the subsequent escape - all together indicate the presence of direct intent to take life,” Chernovik quotes the statement of the murdered man’s fellow villagers.

The residents of Sabnova are demanding that law enforcement agencies pay attention to the case and control the investigation.

“The victim, the only son in the family, came home for three days from another city where he worked. The pain of the parents is indescribable. We demand that the perpetrators receive a fair and strict punishment that corresponds to the gravity of the crime. The murderers should not go unpunished,” the head of the Dagestan POC Shamil Khadulaev quotes the villagers’ appeal in his Telegram channel.

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