"Disproportionate protection": a Muscovite who received a suspended sentence for self-defense is trying to prove the guilt of her rapist

In Shchelkovo near Moscow, a city court found 29-year-old Muscovite Alena (name changed) guilty of causing grievous harm to the man who attacked her.

According to the defendant, he did not let her out of the apartment and tried to rape her, in the end she had to grab a knife.

The court recognized the fact of self-defense as proven, but concluded that the girl "exceeded the limits of protection."

Now Alena intends to get the punishment of the man accused of attempted rape.

Restless neighbor

According to Alena, in 2019 on a dating site she met 39-year-old Ruslan.

As follows from the materials of the criminal case, during the correspondence he invited her to visit, the girl agreed (screenshots of the correspondence were attached to the case materials). 

According to court documents, the conflict between the young people arose on December 7.

Alena herself, in an interview with RT, said that Ruslan invited her to perform intimate actions, she refused and tried to leave the apartment, but the man began to hold her.

According to the investigation, he hit her on the head several times and “committed other violent acts of a sexual nature against her”.

Alena told the investigation that she grabbed a knife from the kitchen table and put it in front of her, demanding that the man give her things and let her out of the apartment.

When she was putting on her boots, Ruslan rushed at her and tried to take the knife away, a struggle ensued.

The girl once hit him in the stomach with a weapon and was able to run out of the apartment, while the man also wounded her in the shoulder and managed to hit her on the head several times, according to the investigation materials (available to RT). 

At this time, Ruslan's neighbors, a married couple who woke up from screams, came out to the stairwell.

They let Alena into their apartment and called an ambulance.

At the trial, neighbors said that in the early morning of December 7, they saw a naked girl on the staircase, covered in blood and holding two knives in her hands.

“Seeing them, A. ran to the open door of their apartment, saying:“ Help, they want to rape me, ”the court's decision says.

A few minutes after that, the wounded Ruslan came out into the corridor and also asked the neighbors to call an ambulance.

According to the man's testimony, he did not try to keep Alena in the apartment, the girl allegedly went to the kitchen to drink, and when they met in the hallway, she pointed a knife in his direction.

An important testimony at the trial was the testimony of neighbors, who recalled that about two years earlier, a girl had also knocked on their apartment at night.

According to eyewitnesses, she was only wearing a towel, she asked for help and told a similar story: that she met Ruslan, came to his house, and he tried to rape her.

According to Alena's lawyer Aleksey Danilov, then the neighbors called the police, but the story was hushed up, and Ruslan did not bear any responsibility.

"The polygraph results shocked"

According to the case file, the traumatologist diagnosed Alena with a cut wound on her right shoulder, bruises and abrasions on her head, abdomen and both arms.

Ruslan was wounded in the stomach.

A criminal case was opened against the girl for causing grievous bodily harm with the use of weapons (clause "z", part 2 of article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Ruslan was recognized as a victim.

Lawyer Alexey Danilov, in an interview with RT, noted that law enforcement officers did not pay due attention to the girl's injuries and refused to initiate a criminal case against Ruslan.

“Only after our numerous complaints and appeals to all instances did we manage to achieve that both the rapist and his victim were interrogated on a polygraph.

The polygraph results shocked many then, ”Danilov said in an interview with RT.

According to him, as a result of an interrogation of a man with a lie detector, it turned out that he allegedly "repeatedly lured girls from dating sites to his apartment, intimidated, beat and raped them in a perverted manner."

"A polygraph conducted against the victim confirmed that the actions of my client against the rapist himself were indeed self-defense," the source added.

At the end of January this year, the Shchelkovo City Court ruled that Alena "chose a disproportionate method of protection" and caused serious harm to the victim's health.

The court recognized that after Ruslan's attack, the girl "had the right to the necessary defense against socially dangerous encroachment."

“However, the situation that arose did not give A. grounds to assume that the victim's actions were threatening her life, and that the victim's violence would be more severe,” the court ruling says.

The accused was sentenced to six months probation.

During the consideration of the case, the Shchelkovo city prosecutor also requested that 49.5 thousand rubles be collected from the defendant.

for Ruslan's treatment, but the request was not granted.

The girl filed a complaint against Ruslan with the investigative committee.

“I have already been invited to the UK.

They explained to me on the phone that they were waiting for a court decision on my case.

They took a copy of the verdict, which said that the fact of violence against me was established.

They asked to write a statement to be attracted.

They promised to do this business, ”said Alyona RT.

The lawyer notes that the court, finding the girl guilty, also recognized her actions as self-defense, and the actions of the victim as sexual violence.

"In the decision on the case, the victim is recognized as a person who committed violent acts of a sexual nature against the accused, for which criminal liability is provided for from three to six years in prison, without the possibility of reconciliation of the parties," said lawyer Alexei Danilov.

Nevertheless, the final qualification of the man's actions has yet to be made within the framework of a new criminal case.

RT sent a request to the Department of the Investigative Committee for the Moscow Region with a request to comment on the situation and the course of the investigation.

At the time of publication of the material, no response was received from the department.