“The Russian Investigative Committee has established all persons involved in the death of Russell Bentley and the circumstances of the crimes committed,” the committee said in a statement.
Four Russian soldiers – Vitaly Vansjackis, Vladislav Agaltsev, Vladimir Bazhin and Andrei Iordanov – are involved in the case of Bentley’s murder.
They are accused of abusing their official powers, using physical violence and torture that caused the victim’s death due to negligence, as well as concealing a particularly serious crime by moving the remains, the committee said.
On April 8, in Donetsk, Vansjackis, Agaltsev and Iordanov used physical violence against Bentley and tortured him, leading to the death of the American, according to the investigators.
On the same day, Vansjackis and Agaltsev blew up the car with the American’s body with TNT, but on April 9, a soldier of the same army unit, Bazhin, moved the American’s remains to another place, following Vansjack’s instructions, in order to hide the crime.
Bentley had been living in Donetsk for the past ten years and had managed to obtain a Russian passport.
He arrived in the Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region in 2014 and first fought for a while in the “Vostok” militant group, but then became a humanitarian aid mission volunteer and blogger.
The Kremlin media has repeatedly reported on the American who believed in the “Russian world”.
On April 8, Bentley went to the scene of the shooting in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk and disappeared.
As his wife Lyudmila testified, Bentley was detained and then tortured by Russian soldiers in the hope of obtaining material benefits.
2024-09-21 14:53:23