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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
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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
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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.
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