21 December, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Three young men have been convicted in Sennensky District for a brutal murder committed out of hooligan motives, reported to BELTA correspondent Sergey Selikhanov, Deputy Head of the Department for Supervision of Legality of Court Rulings in Criminal Cases of the Vitebsk Regional Prosecutor's Office. The tragic events occurred in July 2011 in the village of Alekhnovo. An inebriated group of three noticed a familiar man returning home from a visit in the evening. Driven by a sudden, unprovoked feeling of intense animosity, the perpetrators beat the villager for two hours, aiming to inflict maximum pain. He attempted to break free and escape, but they caught up with him near the Oblyanka River and drowned him. "In court, the murderers claimed they did not intend to kill. However, experts counted about 50 blows on the victim's body, primarily to the head and torso. The nature of the injuries indicated that the man could have died from traumatic shock, had he not drowned. It was a brutal, senseless murder," emphasized Sergey Selikhanov. Due to its complexity, the criminal case was under consideration for over a year. For intentional murder committed with particular cruelty out of hooligan motives by a group of persons, the Vitebsk Regional Court sentenced two murderers, born in 1987 and 1991, to 17 years and 3 months, and 15.5 years of imprisonment, respectively. The court also charged them with involving a minor, born in 1996, in criminal activity. The latter was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment. The verdict has entered into legal force.-0-

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