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Russians arrest US citizen over pedophilia claims
Arrested man allegedly raped his two sons in Houston, Texas
An American citizen has been detained in Moscow on suspicion of sexually assaulting his two sons after a complaint filed by the mother of the child, multiple Russian news outlets have reported.
According to Moscow daily RBK, American David Thomas Barnes, aged 64, was arrested for allegedly raping his two underaged sons, born in 2010 and 2014. According to the complaint, the crimes took place between 2014 and 2018, in the US city of Houston.
Barnes is suspected of breaking the Russian law for violent acts of a sexual nature against a person under 14 years of age, which has a maximum prison term of 20 years behind bars. Even though the alleged assaults happened abroad, Moscow could still convict if the victims have Russian nationality.
Izvestia added that the authorities received a complaint from the accused’s wife. The news was also published by anonymous Telegram channel 112, which claimed that he has no registration in Russia.
In a comment to RBK, US embassy spokesman Jason Rebholz revealed that the diplomatic mission in Moscow had not yet received any information about the reports.
“We have not received notification from the Russian government about such an arrest. If an American citizen is arrested, we expect immediate notification and immediate access to the consulate in accordance with Russia’s treaty obligations,” he said.
Russia votes on mandatory life imprisonment for pedophiles
The changes to the law will pave the way for recidivists to be locked up for life
By Layla Guest
Serial pedophiles will spend the rest of their days behind bars in Russia’s prisons for repeatedly abusing minors, under recent amendments to the criminal code which have been approved by legislators.
The second and third readings of the bill were passed on Tuesday, containing changes aimed at increasing responsibility for assaulting children.
Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said on Telegram that “those who have previously been convicted of violent acts against minors or committed crimes against two or more children will face punishment.” A life sentence will also be possible for cases aggravated by other serious or very grave crimes.
“The work will continue. It’s important for us to protect children from abuse… from those who can use their position for such crimes,” he added.
Volodin said that the introduction of new circumstances is also being discussed – including, if the violence is committed by a person living with the child, as well as someone who is responsible for the upbringing, education, and protection of the minor, and perpetrators working in the spheres of education and the upbringing of children.
A new approach to time served is also said to be under discussion – sending convicted pedophiles to hard labor in grueling conditions. “We can make them work in the mines in the northern territories. That would be much harder than the death penalty,” Volodin said.
A committee will study all of the proposals and circle back to the issue on February 7.
Under current law, the maximum penalty of life imprisonment is imposed only if the crime is committed by a person previously convicted of a similar act and against a minor under the age of 14. The revised legislation expands liability to all repeat offenders who target minors younger than 18.
The law was adopted in its first reading last month. Volodin wrote on social media that “a life sentence is a just measure to isolate the degenerates. They cannot be called humans, although they are in human form. We hope that this measure will protect children, families, and society as a whole from those who cause irreparable harm.”
The bill on life imprisonment for those previously convicted of raping minors was submitted to the State Duma in September last year, following a spate of high-profile crimes across the country. That month, in Kemerovo Region, a previously convicted pedophile, Viktor Pesternikov, raped and killed two 10-year-old school girls.
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Early release for FSB anal rape officer – media
Experts previously said that his conviction set a ‘precedent’
for the sentencing of special agents in Russia
By Layla Guest
An ex-officer from Russia’s top domestic security agency, who was serving a four-year sentence for torturing a businessman – sexually assaulting him with a carbine rifle – has reportedly been released on parole ahead of schedule.
On Friday, Fontanka reported that a judge in Kirov Oblast released Ilya Kirsanov, a 29-year-old former operative of the Petrograd District Department of the St. Petersburg FSB, after he served less than two years and four months of his sentence.
In September 2019, the Vyborg Garrison Military Court sentenced Kirsanov to four years in a general regime colony for violent acts against businessman Igor Salikov during a search of his home in the Leningrad region.
Kirsanov is said to have thrown the owner of the house to the floor the year before, handcuffing him and sexually assaulting him with the barrel of a hunting rifle. The officers at the scene insisted, however, that the businessman took the weapon and mutilated himself.
The investigation of Salikov’s residence was cut short as he was taken for medical assistance in an ambulance and was required to undergo several operations. The businessman spent several months in hospital and became disabled. Kirsanov was ordered to pay $10,800 to compensate his victim.
Kirsanov’s conviction was said to be the country’s first conviction on the same charges against a security official by experts from Russia’s Committee Against Torture. Tatyana Glushkova, a lawyer who worked for the now-liquidated human rights organization Memorial – registered as a ‘foreign agent’ over links to overseas funding – said at the time that the case against an “FSB officer sets a precedent in Russia.”
Shocking scenes allegedly depicting rape and torture in the country’s prisons have surfaced in recent months. Over a thousand videos were leaked to Gulagu.net purporting to prove that hundreds of people have been subject to humiliating and illegal treatment. One shows a man tied to a bed, his face covered and his legs lifted in the air while a group of men violate him with a stick.
More than a dozen officers have been fired amid a probe into the chilling clips, and the Kremlin has dismissed Alexander Kalashnikov, the director of the federal prisons system.
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