Punishment “lower than the lowest”

Khimki City Court of the Moscow Region pronounced the sentence on the case of the singer Igor Kondratiev, known under the alias Konstantin Krestov, accused of rape and violent actions of sexual nature.

One of the victims was underage at the moment of the crime. I.Kondratiev was sentenced to 2 years and 4 months of imprisonment. But the singer will be set free in a month, as the jail time is calculated from the moment of detention – May of 2010.

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Igor Pastukhov, Advocate of the Moscow Bar association “Law Firm "YUST"”, notes that the court has fixed the punishment below the lowest limit stipulated by the respective Articles. The court ruled K.Krestov guilty of violation of two Articles of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. One of them, Article 131 (“Rape”), fixes imprisonment of three to six years. The other, Article 132 (“Violent actions of sexual nature”), stipulates imprisonment of at least three years.

“According to the provisions of Article 64 of the CCRF, the court is entitled to set the punishment at below the lowest level of the sanction “if there are exceptional circumstances connected with the aims and means of the crime, the role of the culprit, the culprit’s conduct during or after the crime and other circumstances, and still other circumstances, which substantially decrease the level of the crime’s danger to the public”.

As a rule, regarding sexual crimes, such circumstances may include minimal role of a gang rape participant, actively helping the victim, actively redressing the damage done.

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