English

Prison term for driver at fault in schoolboy's death

Andrey Zababura, the driver who ran over and killed a nine-year-old boy in front of his school in western Minsk in November 2012, was sentenced to four years in a low-security correctional institution on Friday.

Yuliya Bliznyuk, a judge of the Frunzenski District Court in Minsk, found Mr. Zababura guilty of manslaughter caused by a traffic rule violation.

The sentence is exactly what Prosecutor Iryna Laptsevich demanded for the 38-year-old businessman earlier this week.

The deadly accident happened when the child, Uladzislaw Hrudzyew, jumped from behind a parked car right into the path of Mr. Zababura's Porsche Cayenne while playing with his friends on November 13. Mr. Zababura had just dropped off his five-year-old son at the school.

"No money can bring a lost son or grandson back to life and heal the wound in the mother's heart," said the lawyer of the victim's family after the ruling was delivered.

The lawyer said that she would express her attitude to the ruling after discussing it with the boy's mother and grandmother.
Mr. Zababura's lawyer, Ihar Papkowski, condemned the sentence as too harsh.
"The court should have taken the circumstances of the case into consideration. It was dark, the driver was not intoxicated, the pedestrian violated a traffic rule, although it's hard to reproach him for that. The driver cannot be reproached for speeding, it has been established that his speed was 18 kilometers per hour," he said.

Mr. Papkowski said that he would appeal the sentence and expressed hope that "understanding will be found with a higher court."

"It's a great shame that the court did not even take into account the opinion of the victim's family, who did not insist on harsh punishment," he said. //BelaPAN