SUPREME COURT OVERRIDES TEENAGER’S ACQUITTAL OF MURDER
ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 25, 2007 Tuesday
Russia’s Supreme Court has overturned the acquittal of a teenager,
who was charged with the murder of an Armenian citizen, Artur Sardarian
on a Moscow suburban train in the spring of 2006.
Thereby the court sustained the plaintiffs’ complaint to order retrial
of the case in the Moscow Region’s court.
Earlier, the Moscow Region’s court acquitted the teenager on the
basis of the jurors’ verdict.
The jury then decided that the teenager’s guilt of "murder committed
by a group of persons out of ethnic hatred" had remained unproven.
According to the investigators, on May 25, 2006 two young men riding
a Moscow-Sofrino suburban train attacked nineteen-year-old Artur
Sardarian "out of hatred towards members of Caucasus-born minorities."
When the trained pulled into the railway station of Klyazma, one of
them pulled the emergency brake, while the other ran up to Sardarian
and stabbed him in the head neck at least five times. The victim died
of wounds.
The charges were brought against an underage resident of the Moscow
Region. The other attacker has remained unidentified to this day.