A Vilnius resident spent a year behind bars after being charged with a heinous crime, but judges questioned the girl’s story.

The young male AI will want to forget about last year as soon as possible. On February 2, 2020, he was immediately arrested on rape charges. After just over half a year, he heard a favorable decision in the Vilnius City District Court: there is very little evidence to prove his guilt, so he was released in court.

However, such a verdict was appealed and the judges of the Vilnius Regional Court took a completely different view of the situation and, just before Christmas, on December 22, they decided to impose a prison sentence of 3 years. The guy, who enjoyed his freedom for several months, was immediately returned to the prison.

The fate of the young man was then decided by the judges of the Supreme Court, who had already issued an acquittal in a final and unappealable sentence and ordered the release of the minor.

It all happened while waiting for the police.

The story, which took place last winter, began when AI, knocking on neighbors’ doors, began demanding € 20 from its owners for the stacked firewood a few years ago. They never paid him for it. This led to a dispute. Finally, the obnoxious neighbors called the police reporting that they were being harassed.

“At that moment, the daughter of the neighbors invited me to talk. She told me that she didn’t have time now, because her parents could look for her, but she offered to find her in the forest after 20 minutes, where we had seen each other many times before, ”said the boy.

According to him, they had been friends with the girl before and had made love more than once, so they were still suspicious for what purpose they would go to the forest.

“I waited maybe half an hour, she came, brought a bottle of beer, said she took it from her mother. We took a few sips, she started sneaking up and kissing me, she told me to take off my pants, “he recalled.

The boy said he was a bit surprised when he saw the girl coming with the slippers, he still asked her why she was without shoes in such cold weather.

“She replied that her parents would not catch her going anywhere, she told them that she would only bring water,” the defendant said.

Soon the girl’s sister caught them lying on the ground in the forest and began to scream. The guy who jumped on put on his pants and was quick to justify, “It’s not me, it’s her.”

Both sisters returned home, leaving the boy in the forest. Officials summoned before the whole event appeared. The girl’s father and sister immediately told them that a horrible crime had just been committed.

Police immediately found the suspect walking through the house, they found him over 4 prom. drunkenness.

“He explained to us that there was nothing, that they had been communicating for a long time and that it was not the first time, they were a couple,” recalled the officer who interviewed the suspect.

Told about violence

That same day, the victim interviewed by investigators said that she went out to wait for the summoned officers when AI approached her.

“He approached me, asked me where the police were, I told him that I was going to meet them in the water column. We went there together, then he grabbed my neck with both hands and started to strangle me, I tried to resist but I didn’t have the strength.

He started dragging me into the forest, he said that if I wanted to live, I had to go with him. As I crawled, I saw a neighbor and started yelling for help. A neighbor punished him and told me to release him, and then he turned around and headed home. The AI ​​kept dragging me into the woods, “the victim told officials.

The girl was forcibly dragged into the forest. There he tried to scream for help and resist, but was unable to do so until his sister finally appeared.

However, investigators may have immediately had doubts about the girl’s story, because when said neighbor was interviewed, he told a slightly different story.

“I was watching TV at home at the time, I saw through the window how they were doing normally, I didn’t see him pulling that girl. He hadn’t really come out at the time, he hadn’t heard any conflict, “he said.

The other neighbors also did not hear conflicts and cries for help, even though the forest was only a few hundred meters from the house.

The victim, who appeared in court, began to tell a slightly different story: that she did not ask for help because she did not have the strength.

Also during the first interview, he categorically denied having had sex with AI before, but admitted in court that the two were a couple.

History has raised doubts

Judge Rolandas Bužinskas, who evaluated all the evidence, noted that the suspect’s story was consistent from the beginning, and he did not even try to hide from the arriving officials, and agreed to communicate with them himself.

“After the incident, AI’s behavior did not show that he felt he had committed a crime or hurt the victim,” the judge wrote in the sentence.

She also pointed out that the victim herself had reported that the suspect had insulted her, but according to the testimony of her and the sister who had caught them, both were lying on one side of the ground. There were also no traces of a fight.

“During the pre-trial investigation, the clothing was worn by the defendant and the victim wore it during the incident, and the clothing was photographed. The photos do not show that the clothes are torn, damaged, bloody, dirty, etc. The expert’s report confirms that no AI injuries were found. Therefore, the material and written evidence of the case does not confirm that the victim resisted, tried to escape, to escape.

The witness saw that after leaving the forest, the girl’s jacket was well buttoned, she had no scratches or scrapes on her face. There are no witnesses in the case to confirm that AI had dragged the victim and that he had resisted having clearly expressed his unwillingness to have sexual relations with the accused through his physical actions, words and sounds, ”the verdict said. .

Furthermore, the victim later claimed that she herself told the police about the rape, but this was not true: her sister was the first to speak about the crime and her parents alluded to it.

Thus, it can be seen that the non-victim first informed the parents of the possible crime and contacted the police, so it is believed that he began to communicate with the police out of fear of the parents’ reaction, and not because of the crime against him. . “decided by the judge.

The same version was repeated by the suspect, he said, the girl’s parents were constantly violent, so she simply made up the rape out of fear of their reaction.

“She was afraid that her father would not hit her, that’s why she wrote a statement,” the young man defended himself against the accusations.

As another questionable circumstance, the judge viewed the defendant as drunk: he had been drinking for several days prior to the alleged rape, and was set at 4:19 PM immediately after the incident. drunkenness. According to eyewitness accounts, it was obvious that he was drunk and staggered while standing.

“The AI ​​is unlikely to consider that the victim escaped, pushed, hit the AI ​​the entire time she was dragged into the forest, according to the victim, even more so because her movements were not coordinated due to a severe degree of intoxication, he said. the witness. In addition, both the defendant and the neighboring witness indicated that the girl was able to resist, they have seen it when she was angry and in conflict with her mother. The victim stated in court that AI did not threaten her, so there was no violence psychological, intimidation to break his will by AI ”, says the sentence.

They looked at the same evidence differently

Due to all these circumstances, it was decided to acquit AI and release him, but this verdict was appealed. The judges of the Vilnius Regional Court, when evaluating the same evidence, reached a completely different conclusion.

In his opinion, all these discrepancies are insignificant and are not essential in deciding the fate of the accused.

For example, the fact that a neighbor has not heard any cry for help, but has seen young people pass through the window, is unfavorable only for the boy. The latter said that he was waiting for the girl in the forest, but that did not seem to be true.

According to the judges, the fact that they were found lying on their side does not negate the version that the girl was raped in this way.

Another unfavorable evidence for the defendants in this court was the conclusion of a specialist: slight abrasions were found on the girl’s neck and cheek, as well as a crack on the genitals.

However, the Supreme Court categorically disagreed with this conclusion. Here it is stated that all the conclusions of the judges who convicted the guy are just preconditions.

“ The appeals court, after criticizing the assessment of the evidence in the case by the court of first instance and declaring it incomplete, selectively (fragmentary) and unilaterally evaluated the testimony of the convicted person, the victim, the witnesses and the expert report on the injuries of the victim, selectively distinguishing that, as the court pointed out, denies the statements made by the convicted person, without assessing, in principle, the contradictions established by the court of first instance between the victim’s testimony and other evidence in the case ”, Said the judges of the SCL.

It is true that the guy was not completely rehabilitated with a final and unappealable sentence, but it was decided that there were simply too many doubts in the case.

According to the panel of judges of the Court of Cassation, in the present case, in the absence of evidence that can reliably corroborate AI’s testimony, it did not gather incontrovertible evidence and did not eliminate doubts and objections to AI’s actions against the victim, it is written in the order ‘. – write in the order.