Gang rape of a girl in Transcarpathia: what is wrong with the sentence and what are the chances of justice

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In Transcarpathia, three teenagers raped a 14-year-old friend and spread a video of the abuse on the Internet and at school. The crime was committed in 2021, but the case gained publicity only now, because the court issued a verdict on March 20. The Volovetskyi District Court released the offenders from punishment and ordered a 2-year probationary period, as well as monetary compensation to the victims. However, the public was outraged by the verdict: ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, head of the regional state administration of Zakarpattia region Viktor Mykyta, and minister of education Oksen Lisovyi reacted to it. The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that the prosecutor’s office will file an appeal against the court’s decision. After the publicity on March 27, judge Oksana Sofilkanych went on sick leave, Suspilne writes. On the same day, the mother of the two defendants, who works as an accountant in the village council in Verkhnyi Voroty, went on vacation. What is wrong with the sentence and what will happen to the victim? “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” collected the details of the high-profile case. What happened? In Transcarpathia, in the village of Verkhni Vorota, two twins and another 15-year-old boy raped a 14-year-old girlfriend in 2021. On August 24, they lured the girl to the yard of one of the teenagers, and then to the basement. One of the offenders hit the girl in the stomach, and then they took turns raping her, filming the abuse on video. Photo: lucidwaters/Depositphotos The video was uploaded to social networks and distributed around the school, but none of the fellow villagers informed the girl’s family. Judging by the text of the court decision, the victim was afraid to tell her father and grandmother about the rape. The grandmother learned about the incident from the police and later filed a complaint against the perpetrators. “When the witness (grandmother) learned about the event, she asked her granddaughter, who confirmed that she was raped by the accused and filmed it on a mobile phone and distributed it to school students. She was ashamed and afraid to tell about it. After the event, the girl became more gloomy and withdrawn , had trouble sleeping, felt shame and fear. This event was traumatic for her,” the court’s decision reads. The school assured that they had not seen the video and knew nothing about the rape before the arrival of the law enforcement officers. Read also: The organizers of the parties who abused the girls were kept in custody without bail Journalist Vitaly Glagola said in a commentary for “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” that the video got into the network after a certain conflict between the participants of the event. “Two brothers were doing it, another guy was filming it. They quarreled with each other. One of them leaked the video to the network to take revenge on the others, to prove that those two are also not decent,” he says. The teenagers also exerted psychological pressure on the girl “in order to hide the crime and avoid criminal responsibility,” according to the court’s ruling. Close relatives of the rapists came to her home “in order to influence the victim in order to stop the criminal prosecution.” Why criticize the verdict? Violation of the child’s right to protection Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said that the trial was held with the participation of a lawyer from the Legal Aid Center, and the child’s interests were represented in court by the child protection service of the local village council, which gave positive characteristics to the rapists. The media reported that the girl did not have a lawyer, but the Volovetsk District Court denied this information. “During the court process, the victim’s interests were represented by a legal representative – the father and a lawyer. Also, during the procedural actions in the court, the presence of a psychologist was ensured. The representative of the children’s affairs service was involved by the court at the request of the victim herself only during her interrogation, as she did not want to to testify in the presence of the legal representative – the father,” the court reported. Photo: ginasanders/Depositphotos Vitaly Glagola confirmed that a state representative was appointed for the girl – lawyer Olena Mykolaivna Dubrovska. However, the lawyer did not come to the court decision, where the judge read the verdict. According to Youkontrol, lawyer Olena Dubrovska has been licensed since 2001, and has been registered as an individual entrepreneur since 2012. Since 2021, she has actively participated in public procurement tenders. In 2022, she received UAH 86.5 thousand from the state. The last on the list is the service of legal consulting and legal representation, which was ordered by the Uzhhorod local center for providing free secondary legal assistance. The cost of such a consultation is UAH 805. The journalists of “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” were unable to contact her. Family ties of the offenders Dmytro Lubinets said that the interests of the victim were represented in court by the child protection service of the local village council, where the mother of the twins-figures works. Information about the involvement of the perpetrators’ father in the party of ex-regionals “Opposition Bloc” is also being spread in social networks, but we have not found any confirmation of this. Reclassification of the case Anna Dan, spokeswoman for the National Police of the Transcarpathian region, in a comment for “Ukrainian Pravda. Life” noted that when investigators were collecting evidence, they had no doubts about the classification of the crime as rape. “At the stage of the pre-trial investigation, based on the collected evidence, the investigators had no hesitation in the qualification they chose. It was Part 3 of Article 152 of the Criminal Code, specifically rape by a group of persons,” the spokeswoman said. According to a number of court decisions (43 decisions in the court register), the judge initially considered the case under Part 3 of Article 152 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (on rape). The text of the resolution (for example, for October 19) referred to penetration into the victim’s body. Photo: Tinnakorn/Depositphotos However, later the child’s performances changed. At the trial stage, the case was reclassified from gang rape to non-penetrative gang sexual violence. Forensic experts established that the girl had no physical injuries, the “hymen” was intact and the girl “did not live a sexual life.” It should be noted that the rape occurred in August 2021, and the forensic medical commission examination concluded in November. At the court, the victim stated that she “considers it possible to impose a punishment on the accused that is not related to deprivation of liberty.” It was already written in the verdict that the boys committed acts of a sexual nature, not related to penetrating the body of the minor victim. Accordingly, the verdict was handed down under another article – Part 3 of Art. 153 of the Criminal Code, which provides for a milder punishment. Mild sentence The extras in the case were found guilty of sexual violence committed by a group of persons. The court took into account that the young men had no previous convictions, as well as positive characteristics from the school and the children’s service. At the trial, the boys pleaded guilty and repented. Voluntary compensation for the damage and the commission of a criminal offense by minors were also mitigating circumstances. At first, the judge sentenced the boys to 5 years of imprisonment, which she replaced with a 2-year probationary period. Photo: AntonMatyukha/Depositphotos Offenders were obliged to periodically appear for registration with the authorized body on probation issues; to report a change of residence, work or study. The court also ordered each of the boys to pay 60,000 hryvnias to the victims and to cover the procedural costs of more than 25,000 hryvnias for each. Lawyer Anna Kalinchuk explained that the maximum punishment under the article on sexual violence (Part 3, Article 153 of the Criminal Code) is 7 years of imprisonment, and the rape of a minor by a group of persons (Part 3, Article 152 of the Criminal Code) is punishable by up to 12 years of imprisonment . But the crime qualifies as rape only when there is penetration into the person’s body. What happens next? After publicity and outrage from the public, Dmytro Lubinets took the case under personal control. The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that the prosecutor’s office will appeal the court verdict against the girl’s abusers. The girl’s father agreed to file an appeal in court, and lawyer Masi Nayem agreed to assemble a team of lawyers to defend the girl. Viktor Mykyta, the head of the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration, also said that the girl will not go to the same school as her abusers. “The victim’s family will be offered other educational institutions in the region to continue the child’s education. The list of such educational institutions has already been formed. The final decision is up to the parents,” wrote Mykyta. He noted that the boys had not attended school with the victim since the crime was committed, as they were under house arrest. After the court verdict, they study remotely and are actually isolated from the victim. Photo: luckyuran/Depositphotos Human rights activist and founder of the “Masha Foundation” Masha Efrosinina reported that she found a psychologist for the girl to help her recover from the experience. “Let’s give the girl as much peace as possible in this situation. We are in touch with the child. She will receive all the necessary psychological help from qualified specialists who know exactly how to work with such cases and will do it as efficiently as possible.” she wrote. The human rights commissioner also promised to carefully analyze the actions of judge Oksana Sofilkanych and the prosecutor’s office, to send relevant letters to the High Council of Justice, the Prosecutor General and the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors, as well as to analyze the activities of the local child protection service. However, on March 27, after the publicity, judge Oksana Sofilkanych “ran away” on sick leave, local journalists and the publication “Mukachevo.net” reported. Earlier, regional journalists found another high-profile case of judge Sofilkanych: in 2020, she acquitted the head of the Volovetska OTG, who was exposed for accepting a bribe of UAH 80,000. Read also: They were raped and filmed: three schoolchildren were convicted in Zaporizhzhia for bullying a peer

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