According to Russian investigators, American Russell Bentley, who disappeared this year in occupied eastern Ukraine, was tortured by Russian soldiers and is now awaiting trial. This was announced by the Investigative Committee, which has the role of a federal criminal center in Russia, according to Reuters.
20.09.2024 21:30 , updated: 22:02
Photo: Profimedia
American Russell Bentley, who fought for the Russians.
Soldiers Vitalij Vansjackij, Vladislav Agaľcev, Vladimir Bažin and Andrej Iordanov will be accused of exceeding authority, using physical violence and torture, causing death through negligence, as well as concealing the particularly serious crime of moving body remains, according to the statement of the investigative committee.
According to investigators Vansjackij, Agaľcev and Iordanov, Bentley was physically assaulted and tortured in Donetsk on April 8, which led to his death. On the same day, Vansjacki and Agaľcev blew up the car with Bentley’s body, and on April 9, Bazin, on Vansjacki’s instructions, moved the American’s remains to another location to cover up the crime.
The editor-in-chief of Russia’s pro-Kremlin TV channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, already announced in April that Bentley, who fought on the Russian side against Ukraine, had died in Donetsk. Simonjanová recalled in a telegram that Bentley also cooperated with the Russian propaganda portal Sputnik.
“Depending on the role of each of them, they are accused of manifest group abuse of authority by the use of physical violence and torture, which negligently caused the death of the victim, as well as the concealment of a particularly serious crime by moving the remains of the deceased to another place,” they said in the report. Russian investigators.
Earlier, the Russian media wrote that the police in the Russian-occupied part of eastern Ukraine were looking for Bentley. She wrote about the Texan as a war correspondent. Bentley’s wife claimed that her husband was kidnapped by unknown gunmen in uniform who mistook him for a spy.
Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Bentley, a 1960 model, joined pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine in 2014, later cooperated with Sputnik and received Russian citizenship. He had the nickname ‘Texas’, he called himself the “Donbas Cowboy”.
The soldiers are to be tried on charges ranging from abuse of authority, using physical violence and torture and causing death by negligence to attempting to conceal a serious crime. Investigators did not say whether the soldiers denied the charges.
Source: spravy.pravda.sk
