Citizen R., who murdered two women, was convicted by the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic and sentenced to life imprisonment.
On December 20, 2009, in order to get revenge for the offenses that his live-in lover’s mother and sister had inflicted on him, and also for their trying to dissuade and prevent cohabitation of their relative with citizen R., the criminal decided to kill them. Taking a folding knife, he left the village Alexandrovka, Maryinsky district, for the micro district Shiroky (Kirovskiy district of Donetsk), where women lived.
Women, being well acquainted with R., let him in, where the murderer first struck a knife in the neck of his live-in lover’s mother. When she defending herself knocked the knife out of his hand, he found a kitchen knife in the closet in the hall. With this knife he inflicted twenty-six blows to the head, chest and belly of his live-in lover’s sister, and then returned to the room and inflicted at least fifteen knife wounds to her mother.
The criminal decided to contrive the murder, committed with particular cruelty, so that it looked as assault related to robbery, and after committing the murder he scattered things around the rooms, and secretly stole a mobile phone worth 486 UAH.
Having considered the case, the court ruled a judgement, according to which the convicted R. was found guilty of committing crimes under part 1 of Article 164 (Theft) of the Criminal Code of the Donetsk People's Republic, and paragraphs 1, 4 of Part 2 of Article 115 (Intentional homicide of two or more persons committed with particular cruelty) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and sentenced to life imprisonment with serving a sentence in a correctional colony of a special regime.
Commentary by the Press Service of the Supreme Court of the DPR
Both in the case of the accused R., and in other similar cases, the court when imposing punishment is guided by Article 10 of the Criminal Code of the Donetsk People's Republic, which reads as follows:
"The criminal law... mitigating the punishment or otherwise improving the position of a person who committed a crime is retroactive, that is, it applies to persons who committed relevant acts before the entry into force of such a law, including persons serving sentences or having served sentences, but having a previous conviction. A criminal law establishing the crime of an act, reinforcing the punishment or otherwise worsening the position of a person, does not have a retroactive effect.
If the new criminal law mitigates the punishment for an act that is being served by a person, then this punishment is subject to reduction within the limits provided for by the new criminal law."
Guided by this rule, the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People's Republic, in appointing a punishment for theft, imposed a softer punishment in accordance with Article 164 of the Criminal Code of the DPR (the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides a more severe punishment for such an act), and in the case of the imposition of punishment for the willful homicide of two or more persons, committed with special cruelty by the accused, the court in the appointment of punishment was guided by a softer rule, provided in Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, since the Criminal Code of the DPR in this case provides a tougher punishment – including the death penalty.