In Poltava, a man raped and killed a child
In Poltava, a 57-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 12-year-old girl. The court also found him guilty of sexually assaulting another minor.
The Poltava District Court sentenced him to the most severe punishment—life imprisonment.
The crime took place on the evening of May 26, 2024. The girl was near the market with her mother and stepfather. While the adults were working, a man from Poltava drove up in a car, took advantage of the child’s trust, and lured her into the vehicle. After her daughter went missing, the mother contacted the police. The search for the child lasted four days: they checked building entrances, courtyards, bushes, and wooded areas.
Meanwhile, the man took the girl to his home, raped her, and photographed her naked. The next morning, he drove the child to a forest strip and killed her with two knife stabs to the heart. To conceal the crime, the man from Poltava set the body on fire with a gas torch and watched as it burned. He then transported the charred body 30 km to another forest strip and covered it with branches.
During a search of his home, law enforcement officers seized a phone and a computer. Photos of another naked young child were found on the devices. This led investigators to uncover another incident—the sexual assault of the man’s acquaintances’ 9-year-old granddaughter, committed in August 2023.
“The defendant repeatedly changed his position regarding his admission of guilt and attempted to mislead the pretrial investigation authorities and the court. He provided false information about allegedly prearranged meetings with the minor and denied ownership of the computer equipment seized from his home. All of this indicates that he lacks any awareness of the illegality of his actions,” said Yevhen Hladii, head of the Poltava Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
The court found the man guilty of producing and possessing child pornography, coercing a minor into participating in its creation, sexual assault, rape, the abduction of a minor, and intentional murder to conceal another crime.
This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General.
As a reminder, a resident of the Khmilnytskyi district in the Vinnytsia region is set to stand trial on charges of systematically raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter.
In Kyiv, a drunk man attacked teenagers
In the Khmelnytskyi region, a man opened fire on police officers during a routine ID check. As a result of the attack, one law enforcement officer was killed and another was wounded.
In Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi District, an unknown assailant opened fire on people. According to preliminary reports, one person was killed and others were injured.
