30 March, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Two Orsha residents have been sentenced to long prison terms for a robbery attack on a taxi driver, Vitaly Suzansky, senior prosecutor of the department for supervision of the legality of court decisions in criminal cases of the Vitebsk region prosecutor's office, told a BELTA correspondent. In September 2011, two 17-year-old youths decided to rob a taxi driver. The proposal was initiated by a lyceum student, whose friend, previously convicted of theft, owed him 1,000 Russian roubles. He suggested that the debtor settle the debt by participating in the attack. In the evening of the crime, the youths got into a taxi, drove to the outskirts of the city and stopped in a dark place near the fence of Colony No. 8. After the car stopped, the young man in the front seat struck the driver in the chest with a knife, but the victim pulled the weapon out. Confused by this turn of events and the sight of blood, the young man demanded the knife back and the money. The driver, in a state of shock, complied with the attackers' demands, pointing them to a folder in the glove compartment. Taking the folder, the youths fled to a nearby abandoned building. The total amount of loot, which they decided to count later, was only Br13,000. The taxi driver blocked the car doors and reported the attack to the dispatcher. The police managed to apprehend the Orsha residents, who were hiding from the police at their relatives', within a few days. For the robbery attack by a group of persons, the initiator of the crime was sentenced under Part 2 of Article 207 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus to 5 years of imprisonment, as he did not inflict physical injury on the driver, and his accomplice was sentenced under Part 3 of Article 207 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus to 9 years of imprisonment. The sentence has entered into legal force.-0-

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