The evidence collected during the pre-trial investigation into the rape and beating of a woman in the village of Vradiivka is sufficient to issue indictments, so the pre-trial investigation has been completed, Deputy Prosecutor of Mykolaiv Region Dmytro Yefymenko has said.
According to the requirements of Article 290 of the Criminal Procedure Code (providing access to materials to the other side), the investigator was instructed to notify the participants of the criminal process of the completion of the pre-trial investigation and provide them with the access to the materials of the criminal proceedings, the press service of the Prosecutor’s Office of Mykolaiv region reported on Friday.
As reported, on June 26, two police officers and a taxi driver are alleged to have pulled a 29-year-old woman into a car in the town of Vradiivka, Mykolaiv region, and taken her to a nearby forest, where they beat her up and raped her. The victim was hospitalized with fractures of the skull, cuts to the head and face, and multiple severe bruises.
The rape victim told the investigator that she was beaten and raped by two police officers – Lt. Dmytro Polischuk and Lt. Yevhen Dryzhak. She said a local taxi driver, Mykhailo Rabinenko, participated in the beating.
Polischuk and Rabinenko were detained on June 30.
The fact that the second policeman, Dryzhak, who supposedly had an alibi, had not been detained triggered protests by local residents who demanded his immediate arrest. On July 1, they stormed the district police department demanding that the police officers involved be prosecuted.
Dryzhak was detained on July 2. On July 3, the court ruled that he be placed under two months detention as a pre-trial restriction measure.
On August 5, the charges against three suspects were changed from causing grievous bodily harm to attempted murder an attempted murder committed with extreme cruelty with selfish motives, in order to conceal another crime by prior agreement of the parties.
In addition, one of the suspects is charged with carrying out an assault, another two with rape, an assault, as well as committing a number of official crimes.
