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Alyaksandr Asipovich struck 27-year-old Alesya Klimava (right) 77 times with a hammer and his fists in Babruysk city, Belarus while Krystsina Krushkina (left) died of stab wounds |
Hammer killer will be executed with a shot to the back of the head after murdering two women he met at a nightclub in Belarus
- Alyaksandr Asipovich met Alesya Klimava and Krystsina Krushkina in nightclub
- He struck Klimava 77 times with hammer while Krushkina died from stab wounds
- Confessed to the killings but has been sentenced to death by a Belarus judge
- Executions in Belarus are carried out with a shot to the back of the head
- He struck Klimava 77 times with hammer while Krushkina died from stab wounds
- Confessed to the killings but has been sentenced to death by a Belarus judge
- Executions in Belarus are carried out with a shot to the back of the head
By WILL STEWART IN MOSCOW FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 18:47 AEDT, 10 January 2019 | UPDATED: 22:35 AEDT, 10 January 2019
A hammer killer has been sentenced to death for murdering two women he met at a nightclub.
Alyaksandr Asipovich struck 27-year-old Alesya Klimava 77 times with a hammer and his fists in Babruysk city, Belarus.
Her friend Krystsina Krushkina, 26, died from multiple stab wounds and a court heard how the 36-year-old murderer had made plans to dismember his victims' bodies.
Asipovich confessed to the killings, but has been sentenced to death. In Belarus, those sentenced to death are forced to kneel before being shot by a state executioner in the back of the head.
Shortly before the two women were killed, Krushkina had made a desperate call to Belarus police from the man's apartment to say they were barricaded into a bathroom and he intended to murder them.
She gave the name of the street but did not know the number of the apartment block.
By the time police tracked down the right address, the women were dead. Krushkina died from 16 stab wounds to her neck and head.
Asipovich, 36, had made plans to dismember their bodies, then dispose of the human remains, but police arrived before he could carry them out, the court was told.
The killer confessed to murdering the women. He pleaded in court in Belarus not to be sentenced to death so he could pay compensation to the families of the victims.
Belarus is the only country in Europe still to carry out the death penalty, with convicts forced to kneel before being shot by a state executioner in the back of the head.
'I don't know what provoked me to do this,' said Asipovich.
'I am a kind and sentimental person. I regret what I did and ask everyone to forgive me.'
He told judge Mikhail Melnikaw: 'I ask the court to give me a chance to stay alive, to work and pay money to families of the dead.'
But the judge decreed he should be executed for the brutal murders.
Asipovich had been drinking with the women and ordered them pizza and cocktails at a nightclub in Babruysk in July.
Staff said the three were 'drunk' when they left by taxi for his apartment at 4am. The call to police was at around 7am.
Asipovich had previous convictions for theft, robbery, malicious hooliganism and grievous bodily harm causing death, the court was told.
More than 400 people have been sentenced to death and executed in Belarus since the end of Soviet rule in 1991.
Strongman president Alyaksandr Lukashenka has pardoned only one death row inmate.
Four men were executed in 2018, and Asipovich is the first to be sentenced this year.
Women cannot be executed under the country's laws.
In November, Belarus executed two 'evil' estate agents Igor Gershankov, 37, and Semyon Berezhnov, 32, convicted of conning six vulnerable people into giving up their homes - then killing them, burying several alive.
Asipovich has the right to appeal and also to seek clemency from the Belarus president - but in almost all cases death sentence verdicts are upheld.
No advance details are given on when executions are carried out.
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Asipovich (pictured during sentencing) confessed to the killings, but has been sentenced to death. In Belarus, those sentenced to death are forced to kneel before being shot by a state executioner in the back of the head |
Belarus court passes death sentence on murderer of two girls
PHOTOS
2019.01.09
15:07
PHOTOS
2019.01.09
15:07
36-year-old Alyaksandr Asipovich has been sentenced to death on January, 9.
Last summer the brutal murder of two girls in Babruysk shocked the whole country. On July 20, a girl contacted the police shouting that they were being killed:
“He is killing us! We have locked ourselves in the bathroom! He has an axe! My God, he will destroy everything! I’m covered with blood!” the victim screamed. Then the phone went dead.
The girls did not know the attacker’s address, and the police was not able to immediately identify it.
According to prosecutors, Asipovich, a resident of Babruysk, brutally killed the two girls. The man met them in a cafe, where they had some drinks, and then the trio headed to his place. Asipovich stabbed and hammered them to death. Their bodies bearing multiple cuts and injuries were found in the bathroom.
The defendant fully realized what was happening at the moment of the murder; he even tried to cover up the crime, state prosecutor Volha Ivanova said. His turning himself to the police cannot be a mitigating factor, she stressed.
The judicial board inflicted the supreme penalty (execution) on the defendant. In addition, he will also have to pay 100,000 Belarusian rubles to the mother of one of the victims for moral loss, as well as all the costs of funerals and legal fees. The judge informed the convict of his right to appeal against the verdict and ask for pardon.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe that still applies capital punishment. The West has repeatedly called on the Belarusian authorities to join a global moratorium as a first step towards the abolition of the death penalty.
The exact number of executions in Belarus is unknown, but local human rights defenders and journalists have worked tirelessly to uncover some information about death sentences and executions. According to the Ministry of Justice of Belarus, 245 people were sentenced to death from 1994 to 2014. Human rights NGOs believe that around 400 people have been executed since the country gained its independence in 1991; president Alyaksandr Lukashenka granted a pardon to only one convict.