Note: This is a story that’s a few months old. However, it’s important in that it shows what happens when a country is interested in justice rather than a legal code. Given that, I think it’s important and, seeing it for the first time, decided to write about the story.
According to the Sun, a British publication, a Russian father discovered that a friend of his, Oleg Sviridov, had raped his 8-year-old daughter. Not only that, but Oleg had apparently recorded the rape on his mobile phone, with the sickening footage including the young girl pleading “Oleg, that’s enough, I can’t take it anymore. I want to go home”.
Horrific stuff, enough to certainly set the blood of any real man on fire, particularly given that it was this man’s daughter that Oleg had sexually abused.
So, taking revenge and dealing with the child abuser, the young father took Oleg into the forest, made him dig his own grave, and then is suspected of stabbing him to death. It’s like the Old West, but in Russia.
The father, for his part, maintains that he made Oleg dig his own grave just to scare him and make him turn himself into the police but, Oleg, fearing for his life grabbed the father’s knife and stabbed himself with it following an altercation because he “realized he had nothing to live for.”
While the vengeful father originally faced murder charges, Russia’s courts apparently decided to drop that charge and replace it with a much lighter one, as the Sun reports, saying:
“He originally faced a murder investigation – but has now been told this has been dropped, sources close to the case say.
“In a landmark decision, he will instead face prosecution for inciting Sviridov to take his own life, which carries a lesser sentence than murder.
“The former rocket engine factory worker has always denied murder and is “pleased” that he will not face a charge of deliberately killing Sviridov.”
Whether they bought the “Oleg stabbed himself” story or just wanted to be merciful to a man who found out a friend had sexually abused his daughter is unclear, but the charge he’s facing only carries a maximum sentence of six years and often doesn’t result in jail time, so the father won’t be punished harshly for dealing with his daughter’s abuser, whatever happened.
What is clear is that public opinion in Russia was firmly on the side of the father. The Sun, noting that, added that:
“After the dad was linked to the paedo’s killing, he was backed by a wave of public support in the Samara region with locals in the village Pribrezhnoye raising money for his legal fees.
“A petition signed by 2,500 people demanded that he should be fully acquitted as they hailed him a hero.
“They supported him for “saving our children by ridding us of a child sex attacker”.“
Such is quite different than how American vigilantes have been treated, as our courts tend to focus more on the words of the legal code than justice for the victims.
"*" indicates required fields