Mitigating circumstances: court overturns life imprisonment for murderer of five-year-old child

The Third General Jurisdiction Court of Appeal in the city of Sochi changed the verdict of the citizen of Ukraine Alexander Pilipenko, who was found guilty of the murder of his five-year-old stepdaughter.

The man's punishment was changed from life imprisonment to 19.5 years in a strict regime colony.

This was reported in the press service of the Court of Appeal.

"Contributed to the investigation"

The judge took into account that Pilipenko contributed to the solution of the crime, since after the arrest he confessed to the murder, gave detailed testimony and indicated the place where he hid the girl's corpse.

"Until that time, the preliminary investigation bodies did not have information about the person who committed the crime, as well as about the location of the girl's corpse," the court said in a statement.

The press service added that these circumstances were not taken into account by the Supreme Court of Crimea, which in April this year, sentenced the man to life in prison.

“The panel of judges recognized the active contribution to the disclosure and investigation of the crime as a mitigating circumstance,” the appeal instance noted.

The verdict has already entered into force.

A five-year-old girl from the village of Kropotkin in Crimea disappeared in November 2019.

Her mother at that time was working in China, Alexander Pilipenko alone raised their two-year-old son and five-year-old stepdaughter.

Pilipenko himself reported to the police about the disappearance of the child.

For several days, the girl was sought by hundreds of volunteers and police, but then, during interrogation, her stepfather confessed to the murder of her stepdaughter.

The court found that the man beat the girl and then drowned her in the bathroom.

After that, he removed the child's body by car and buried it near the house.

According to the investigation, after that, Pilipenko took the documents of the children from the kindergarten and tried to leave with his youngest son to Ukraine, but he failed to do so.

Then he returned home and pretended that the girl was missing.

The Supreme Court of Crimea found him guilty of premeditated murder of a child (clause "c", part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

"There are always fresh toys on the grave"

Following the court decision, lawyer Pilipenko filed an appeal to appeal the verdict.

“We appealed the decision because the punishment was excessively severe.

Life imprisonment is given to people for three murders.

Practice shows that for one fact of murder they are sentenced to imprisonment from 15 to 20 years, "the convict's lawyer Alexander Osokin explained in an interview with RT.

At the same time, he added that Pilipenko himself was satisfied with the decision of the Crimean court and allegedly asked him to be sentenced to life imprisonment.

During the appeal, Pilipenko wanted to get the charges of sexual activity dropped.

“Initially, he was charged with two crimes: he allegedly committed sexual acts on a girl and killed her to hide it.

As a result, this item was removed from the prosecution, ”Osokin said.

According to him, Pilipenko was also recognized as entitled to monetary compensation for the illegal accusation.

The Crimean Prosecutor's Office has not yet begun to comment on the situation and report whether the supervisory authority will appeal the decision of the Court of Appeal to change the life sentence.

The grandmother of the deceased girl, Lyubov Nikitina, says she does not know why the sentence was reduced.

“I have received all the appeals.

In all, he asks not to change the sentence.

Now what can I say?

Dasha cannot be returned anyway, ”she sighs.

Elena A. (name has been changed), who was the teacher of the deceased child in the kindergarten, stated that she did not agree with the change in punishment.

“This is not a trial, but some kind of misunderstanding.

This is very bad, but I try not to think about him (Pilipenko

- RT

), - said the interlocutor of RT.

- I was at Dasha's grave about a month ago.

The inhabitants of the village, the parents of our group in the garden, constantly come there.

There are always fresh flowers and toys. "

Elena recalls that she was shocked when she learned about Pilipenko's confession of the murder.

According to her, she never noticed aggression or negativity from him towards his wife and daughter.

“He was a pretty ordinary person.

Not very sociable, but it seemed to me that it was because they had just moved, they didn’t know anyone yet.

Until recently, I did not know that he was not his own father - he was recorded in the testimony by his father.

Until the last moment I hoped that it happened through negligence, ”said the interlocutor.

Seventh

The change from life imprisonment to a lighter punishment is a unique case for the Russian judicial system.

Earlier, RT said that since the introduction of this measure, according to the Federal Penitentiary Service, in Russia, only six prisoners have achieved such mitigation.

“Pilipenko was very lucky, because he committed an especially grave crime.

Courts are reluctant to change life imprisonment because it will anger the majority of the country's population.

Our people, of course, are kind and merciful, but with regard to murderers of children, people are almost unanimously in favor of being sentenced to the most severe punishment - life imprisonment, ”retired Interior Ministry colonel and lawyer Yevgeny Chernousov shared in an interview with RT.

His colleague, lawyer Ruslan Koblev, noted that in the case of Pilipenko, it was decisive that he contributed to the disclosure of the crime.

"If the maximum punishment is received by a person who has such a mitigating circumstance, then each subsequent accused will not be motivated to cooperate with the investigation," the interlocutor of RT explained.

Other mitigating circumstances under which the court can change the life sentence may be compensation for damage, the presence of the defendant in the case of young children or pregnancy, the commission of a crime in difficult life circumstances or on the basis of compassion, added Ruslan Koblev.

Earlier, RT talked about the fate of six especially dangerous criminals in Russia, who were changed to life imprisonment.

Most of them were never able to get used to life in freedom - they again ended up in prison or drank themselves to death.

The first to be released back in 2006 was a native of Saratov, 46-year-old Alexander Biryukov. He was found guilty of the murder of an officer in 1991 while serving in the army. Initially, Biryukov was sentenced to death. After the appeal, the former conscript soldier ended up in a colony for life-sentenced prisoners, and in 1999 the regional court replaced his life sentence with 15 years in prison. After his release, Alexander returned to his native Saratov, where he lived for several years with his wife. Then he got divorced, started drinking and died of a heart attack.

Another former prisoner, 64-year-old Vladimir Pakhomov, managed to prove in court that he spent several extra years and even received compensation from the state for moral damage in the amount of 60 thousand rubles.

The last three years of his life, he lived in the village of Diveyevo, Nizhny Novgorod region.

Pakhomov also abused alcohol and died in 2017.

The last to be released was 42-year-old Perm resident Alexei Bykov.

He not only achieved a revision of the sentence, but also became the only life prisoner in Russia who managed to get parole.

He was imprisoned in 1999 on triple murder charges. In 2010, he achieved a review of the case in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Items on murder with special cruelty and theft were excluded from the verdict. As a result, the court reduced Bykov's sentence to twenty years in prison. Two years later, he was released on parole from the maximum security penal colony No. 1. After his release, Bykov returned to his native village of Yusva to his wife.