The entire accusation is based only on the words of the teacher. Donat's fingerprints were not found, the blood found belonged to an unidentified man and woman, Donat passed a polygraph - according to the polygraph, he was not involved in the crime, the teacher refused to take the polygraph. Testimony of witnesses: classmates, their parents, teachers - all in favor of Donat, there is no crime weapon in the case, no blood was found in the backpack into which Donat allegedly threw the knife. Despite this, on April 7 Minsk City Court sentenced Donat to eight years of imprisonment in a correctional colony under Part 1 of Art. 14 and paragraphs. 6, 10 hours 2 tbsp. 139 Criminal Code(attempted murder of a person in connection with professional activities).
“Many Belarusians have heard about the incident that occurred in the 74th gymnasium in Minsk on May 23, 2016. Then I sadly thought, how do you need to get a student so that he attacks the teacher with a knife? And now, almost a year later, we learn about the sentence: 8 years in prison. Well, they got the kid, he lost his temper and acted up. Got a deadline. It would be possible not to touch upon this topic if we did not delve into the details of what happened. And many Belarusians, also without delving into the essence of what is happening, condemn this act and the boy himself. But I want to shout to the whole world: people, don’t believe it! Donat Skakun is not involved in what happened in this gymnasium on the morning of May 23, 2016. Having studied the materials available to me, analyzed the situation and conducted a small investigation, I can say with confidence that Donat was not at the scene of the incident! And I know two people who know exactly what happened that morning of May 23. I understand that my team and I are challenging the system, but you can’t argue against the facts. On this site we will publish everything that the investigation hid, and how the court behaved! All details will be made public. Let’s not let an innocent boy go to jail so easily!”- wrote on his page former political prisoner Mikalai Autukhovich
Civil activists, caring people take pictures with the poster #Donat_nevininoven or #Danat_nevinavaty and post photos on social networks with the hashtag of the same name.
Details 06/22/2017
"Belarusian Documentation Center" received a large letter detailing the chronology of the high-profile case of an attack on a teacher gymnasium No. 74 V. Gubarevich allegedly committed by a student Donat Skakun, with some comments from the letter's author. Since we have repeatedly written on this topic, which has received wide public attention, and the facts stated in the letter come either from eyewitnesses or people familiar with the criminal case itself, we are publishing this letter as it is, as one of the versions of the tragedy that occurred. Our readers can try to figure out this confusing matter themselves. Version Investigative Committee and the trial is already known to us all (the case is still awaiting consideration in Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus, and the verdict has not yet entered into force, however, after its approval by the Supreme Court, it will be very difficult to change anything in the fate of the teenager). The narration is divided by the authors into four parts, the beginning of the story is presented in the last 4th part:
Chronology of events
Part 1
We will publish the chronology of events from the moment Donat arrived at school until 8:50 in the last part.
At the beginning of ten o'clock on May 23, 2016, Donat Skakun's father came to school. He went up to the third floor and immediately went to room 316, where Donat was with his mother. This is the neighboring class where the events took place. Guarded Donata and his mother PPS employee Mikulich. Besides them, there was another man in the office in a police uniform, his cap lay next to him on the table. He sat silently at the teacher's table. He didn’t ask anything, didn’t say anything, didn’t draw up any documents, just observed.
(We assume that this mysterious character is the main person who determined how events will develop further. The man is obviously not an ordinary person, since an innocent man was sentenced to eight years. And we assume that this is a good friend or close person school principal Vyunova, Bakhtina or Gubarevich).
Donat's father immediately examined his son and his clothes. I didn’t find anything that could indicate Donat’s involvement in the incident. At this time another person entered the class a PPS employee named Devochko.
PPS employee Devochko had previously been in room 317 and helped shift and transport the injured teacher Gubarevich. The girl was searched by Donat. He took all the things from the guy’s pockets: documents, wallet, keys, player, headphones, mobile phone. All these things were immediately given to my father.
(Looking ahead, let’s say that Devochko, in court, will deny that he searched Donat. Donat’s father will catch him in a lie and prove it to the court, but the court will not give this fact a proper assessment. But this police officer had contact with the victim and easily could have left traces of the victim on Donat’s suit).
Then a woman in the uniform of the Investigative Committee came into room 316. She had shoulder straps of either a colonel or a lieutenant colonel. It was obvious that she was the eldest there. She behaved very theatrically, said that she would figure everything out, and that Donat was being taken away by employees in Oktyabrsky District Department of Internal Affairs.
As they walked along the corridor, Donat remembered that his backpack was left in the gym locker room. And then he and his parents, accompanied by Devochko and Mikulich, went to the gym to get a backpack. They searched the backpack there, right on the floor, then collected all the things and gave them along with the backpack to Donat’s father.
Donat was taken to the Oktyabrsky district police department, Donat's parents put Donat's backpack in the trunk of their car and drove it there. Only his father followed Donat into the building; his mother remained in the car. Until 10 o'clock Donat and his father, under the supervision of one of the teaching staff, sat on a bench in the basement. Nobody communicated with them.
After ten o'clock, the same police officers took Donat and his father to an examination for alcohol and drug intoxication on Minin Street. They stayed there for about half an hour and then returned to the police department.
The father went into the police department again with Donat. They were taken to the second floor to an operative, the head of some department. He talked with Donat and his father for about forty minutes. The operative did not ask any questions on the merits of the case, he simply talked about his extensive work experience. What he saw, what he knows and that everything will become clear to him very quickly. The man was clearly instructed to “powder the brains” of Donat and his father for some time.
At this time, Donat’s mother was in the car near the police department. Mikulich approached her and demanded to give him Donat’s backpack for inspection. He emptied all the contents from the backpack, looked in the trunk, put everything back into the backpack and left. After a short period of time, he returned and said that he was taking the backpack.
At about eleven o'clock Donat was taken away and taken to forensic examination on Yakubovsky Street. Donat's father was forbidden to accompany him. The operative who spoke with them said that only the investigator could give such permission. Donat's father went to look for this investigator, he went up to the third floor and in one of the offices he found this investigator Semyon Alexandrovich Pitsko.
(Pitsko Semyon Aleksandrovich, deputy head of the department for the investigation of crimes against the person and public safety of the Investigative Directorate of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Republic of Belarus for the city of Minsk, then captain of justice (he already participated in the trial with the rank of major). It was this man with three assistants who put pressure on Donat at night. They let him fall asleep and immediately woke him up and took him to fingerprints. They let him fall asleep again, got him up and interrogated him. All this was repeated at least four times, and according to Donat, perhaps more. It was Pitsko who dictated to Donat the text of a “purely heartfelt confession” at night "It was for such nightly exploits that a man was given the rank of major.
Note that the first to arrive at the scene of the incident were employees of the security department R.I. Bury and E.S. Ashurkevich. They had to ensure that nothing was removed from the scene of the incident, that nothing was rearranged, that everything remained in its place).
Part 2
We will publish the chronology of the development of events from the moment Donat arrived at school until 8:50 in the last, 4th part.
Investigator Pitsko told Donat's father that, according to current legislation, the father does not have the right to accompany the child and be present at the forensic examination. Moreover, the father was immediately asked to leave the police department.
Since 11 o'clock, Donat's lawyer was already at the entrance of the police department, who was trying to get to his client. But the attempts ended with him being told “there were no instructions to let him pass.”
Donat's father left the police department and walked around the building. About thirty minutes later, the investigator, whom he had briefly seen in the office on the second floor, came out to him and asked if he had a car there. The father answered in the affirmative. Then the investigator said that the father needed to go to Yakubovsky Street for a forensic examination, saying that his presence and his signature were required there. The father asked this investigator why he was immediately forbidden to travel with his son, to which he replied that he did not know, that’s what the investigator said.
The father arrives at the specified address, but there is no one there anymore. When asked where his child was, he was told that they had already picked him up and taken him away. Father asks why they called me? The employee answers him: “I don’t know, we didn’t really need you here.” Donat's father returns back to the department, and a new surprise awaits him: he is no longer allowed inside the department.
At approximately 15:30, Father Donat was again invited to the police department to see the operative. Donat was there in the office. His backpack was lying on the floor. This time the operative did not speak for a long time. He asked his father: would he mind if Donat took a polygraph? Father asked Donat, are we going to take a polygraph? To which Donat replied: “Yes.” After this, they were interviewed by the employee conducting this study. He gave them to sign a statement that this was done at the request of his father and Donat. Skakun Sr. immediately asked this employee if he would be present during this study? He was told that this was prohibited. After this, the father was asked to leave the police department building.
My father spent a long time, until almost 6 p.m., at the entrance to the police department building, and he was not allowed inside. He began to demand from the duty officer the telephone number of the operative with whom he had spoken on the second floor. They gave him a phone number, and he told the duty officer: “Well, let me in.” After 18:00, Donat’s father entered the police department, went up to the second floor and in the office found two investigators whom he had already seen before. I asked them what the polygraph results were? The operative did not communicate with the father. And the second of the employees, turning away from Father Donat, said: “Everything is fine with the polygraph” - “What do you mean by “normal”? So, the child has nothing to do with it?” asked the father. “No, it’s okay, it’s involved and guilty.” Donat's father asked to see the polygraph report. But he was told that the employee who conducted the examination had already gone home and it was impossible to see the results. At the same time, Donat’s father was told that not only did Donat not pass the polygraph, but there was also a video recording of the incident, witness testimony, the crime weapon was found, and above all, Donat was currently confessing. My father was immediately kicked out of the police department.
(One can only imagine how Donat’s father felt at that moment. What could these unfortunate investigators do with the child? They are interrogating him without his father, without a lawyer, what are they planning there? An outside observer can see that from the first day the focus of the investigators’ work was bright expressed accusatory vector against Donat. Donat was designated as a victim in order to hide what really happened in class 317 that morning of May 23, 2016. Only because he was seen wandering around the school corridors during class).
The lawyer was allowed to see Donat only around 19:00. The employees needed to fill out paperwork, and only at this time did they need a lawyer. It was at this time that the police officers changed Donat’s clothes. It turned out that the lawyer did not see how he was changed and when, and how Donat’s things were packed. The lawyer only signed that the things were packed for examination. Therefore, how Donat was undressed, where things were put, how they were folded, where they were then put, whether they were sealed or not, none of the defenders saw.
(The father was not allowed into this procedure. And, apparently, there were reasons. It is logical that a woman lawyer cannot watch how they change the clothes of an adult guy. Perhaps this is exactly how it was intended. Although, if you need to manipulate the facts, these seals can be affixed as much as you like. Looking ahead, let's say that Donat's shoes came for examination unsealed. Is it even possible to talk about any legality of compliance with investigative procedures in this criminal case?).
The father was called from the street only for questioning at 20:30, when the investigators organized a place for the interrogation of Donat. He came and saw the exhausted state of his son. He asked: “Did you confess?” Donat replied: “No.” He said investigators spoke to him one at a time without stopping.
More than 12 hours have passed since Donat was sent to school. The father found out that he was not fed, given water, or allowed to go to the toilet. Seeing the boy’s condition, the father said that the guy was not able to give any adequate testimony. He cannot be questioned and refused to testify.
Part 3
This ended the interrogation. It was already about nine o'clock in the evening. Donat was taken away and taken away, and Donat’s father and his lawyer were asked to leave the police department building.
At one o'clock in the morning, 05/24/2016, the investigator called Donat's father and said that at 10 o'clock in the morning he was waiting for him at Investigative Committee at the address: st. Saperov 7. Donat's father asked why he had to go there, to which the investigator said that he would find out everything on the spot.
He arrived at 10 o'clock at the Investigative Committee. About an hour later I came to him Investigator for Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Directorate of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Republic of Belarus for the city of Minsk, Major of Justice Voznischik E.V. and the captain of justice Pitsko, already familiar to us. They immediately thrust into his hands a photocopy of Donat’s sincere confession. My father read it and asked if he could take this paper? They told him that no, he couldn’t, and they immediately took it away. They said that it would be better in his interests if tonight, during the interrogation, Donat repeated this sincere confession on video camera. The father asked if he could talk to the child before the interrogation took place? He explained that he himself wanted to find out what happened and how? They answered the father: “No, you won’t be able to talk in private, only in the presence of the investigator.”
When Donat’s father left the investigative committee, he immediately called a lawyer and sent him to the temporary detention center so that he could talk with Donat. After a night interrogation and writing a sincere confession, Donat was taken to Temporary detention center on Akrestsina. It turns out that he was in the temporary detention center from May 24, 2016 to May 31, 2016.
The lawyer returned from Donat and said that the child was in a very bad psychological state and could not really tell anything about the events of that night, as well as about the events of the previous day.
In the evening of the same day, investigator Voznischik E.V. And senior investigator of the Investigative Directorate of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Republic of Belarus for the city of Minsk, captain of justice Monastyrny D.O. wanted to arrange another interrogation. They invited Father Donat, a lawyer and school psychologist. Perhaps they hoped that Skakun Sr. would think and agree to persuade his son to repeat what was dictated to him at night. After all, in the morning at the Investigative Committee they intimidated my father, saying that it would be better if Donat repeated everything written on a video camera. They were obviously scared. But the interrogation did not work out. The school psychologist, seeing Donat's condition, said that he was against interrogation because of Donat's condition.
Analyzing the behavior of the employees, the father realized that this could not be called anything other than bullying. And this mocking attitude continued throughout the entire investigation. For example, they invite you for one time, but appear much later. We always had to wait an hour or more. By the end of the first day there was no longer any confidence in this investigation. Although initially, having arrived at the school, examined Donat and found nothing, it seemed that the investigators would quickly figure it out and release the guy. But these expectations did not come true.
Seeing all this, it was the father who decided that Donat needed to completely refuse any testimony and interrogations, based on distrust of these investigators, and Donat refused. Until the end of the investigation, he did not say a single word to the investigators. Although the investigators’ attempts, despite Donat’s refusal, still continued. Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Dmitry Ivanovich Smolyakov was appointed head of the investigation team.
On May 31, 2016, Donat was taken to the prosecutor to make a decision on changing the status of a detainee to a suspect. And as a minor, the prosecutor was obliged to interrogate him. But Donat refused. Then, somewhere in mid-June, they wanted to interrogate him, when Skakun was in "New". The investigators did not yet have in their hands any expert reports, nor the reports of a psychologist, nor a psychiatrist, what kind of interrogation could they be talking about? But the investigators acted as if they had 100% evidence of Donat’s guilt. The guy refused to testify.
A child came to school for a lesson and ended up in jail. A children's school psychologist, visiting Donat on the second day of his arrest, said that he did not recognize him. According to the specialist, Skakun was in a state of passion, in shock.
(During the visit, I got the impression that Donat was under psychotropic drugs. Therefore, the next day, Skakun’s parents filed a petition for an examination for psychotropic drugs, which the investigators refused).
During one of his visits, the father asked the investigator to provide a polygraph report to specialists from Novinki. Explaining what could be important, what questions were asked to Donat, how he answered them, what state he was in. All this could be important for the examination and be useful information in assessing Donat’s condition. But investigator Smolyakov said that he did not have a polygraph report at all, he would not look for it and attach it to the case, but he had a certificate of a polygraph test. A little later, in pre-trial detention center No. 1, Donat’s lawyer will force the investigator to tell him what was written in the certificate about the polygraph test. And he said in his own words that the certificate says that the research was carried out, but its results are of no interest to the investigation in this criminal case. And in the very result, as far as he remembers, it was written that he was not involved, not guilty. Towards the end of 2016, when Donat’s father gets acquainted with the materials of the criminal case, he himself will see this certificate of expert research.
(But the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not completely rotten. After all, an honest employee of the examination was caught and wrote the truth in the conclusion. But, most likely, he was asked to write differently, because the investigators really needed at least some kind of evidence. For example, the lawyer warned in advance not to agree to a polygraph , because it may happen that the conclusion will say: involved and guilty, and this will definitely be attached to the case. Although this examination is not legal evidence in court, they will attach the conclusion and say that the polygraph confirmed guilt. Thank God that there are still honest employees!)
On June 30, 2016, Donat’s parents brought a package, but in Novinki they said: “Your son is not here, and we don’t know where he was taken.” The investigators once again showed inhumanity towards the parents: the child is a minor, they could have warned, if not the parents, then the lawyer, that the child was being transferred and where. But not in this case. The parents found out that Donat was taken to Volodarsky. So, from June 30, 2016, the guy was and still is in Pre-trial detention center No. 1.
Donat’s relatives learned about the progress of the investigation only when they were called by the investigator to sign papers about the next examination. And only then did the father have the opportunity to see his son. Relatives and Donat were not informed about the progress of the investigation. For example, they called my father and said that they had ordered an examination of the knife blade. And he himself guesses that there is no knife, but some kind of blade was found. Not a dirk, as victim Gubarevich described as the crime weapon, but a knife blade.
Donat’s relatives actually learned about the blood on his clothes from the media in July, even before the guy was charged. The Chairman of the Investigative Committee spoke and said that in this case, traces of blood were found on clothing. He put it very interestingly, saying something like: “Probably, most likely, it will be the suspect and the student detained at this moment who will be charged.” About a week later, Skakun was charged. The lawyers demanded that the investigators familiarize them with the clothing examination materials and were indignant at why they were learning from the press about facts that they should first familiarize themselves with. The public is informed about the examination of blood on clothing, but lawyers are not informed. After the complaints, the lawyers were familiarized with the results of this examination, but not all of them, but selectively, so that they would lag behind the investigators. And as it turned out in court, according to the examination, there was something to hide. Donat's clothes were submitted for examination on May 31, 2016. It turns out that the forensic examination of the clothes began a week later. A week later, a biological examination began, and a week later, a genetic examination.
Before the case went to trial, no interesting events occurred. Donat refused to testify.
Part 4
Donat entered the school, and the video camera recorded this time, at 8:13. It was also recorded that at 8:30 Donat and a classmate Ilya Ulyanovich left school. The time Donat spent at school was about 17 minutes.
Primary school teacher S.M. Yalovik in her testimony in court, she said that at 8:15 she looked at her watch and left the class, heading to office No. 317 to see Hubarevich. This journey is approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds. But given that she left the children alone in the classroom and could have been in a hurry, we will record that she reached Gubarevich’s office in 1 minute.
Further, in court, teacher Yalovik said that she talked with Hubarevich in room 317 for several minutes. Let's assume that this is at least 2 minutes. But Hubarevich herself made an amendment in court and remembered the details. She said that when Yalovik was about to leave, she stopped her, and they talked and joked some more. Let's add two more minutes. Total 4 minutes. The court recorded exactly this time of conversation. It turns out that Yalovik stayed in room 317 until 8:20. (It must be noted that in the court verdict this episode is described completely differently from how it was recorded in the trial. In the verdict they wrote that Yalovik came to Gubarevich at about 8:15. For some reason the court distorts the time. Here every minute plays a role, and it is unacceptable to change the time not in favor of the accused).
We described in detail the episode with teacher Yalovik so that it was clearly visible that the investigation did not simulate the situation. Neither the investigation nor the court established which route the teacher Yalovik took? And why? Indeed, according to the investigation, Donat should have approached class 317 around this time to attack the teacher. And teacher Yalovik was supposed to meet him. But the court and the investigation were not interested.
Today it is already clear to us that Donat could not have attacked Hubarevich. Let's try to prove this based on the testimony of witnesses, which the court did not recognize as false.
At 8:15 minutes Donat approaches the class and sees that Hubarevich is talking with some teacher. He slowly steps aside and thinks about what he should do in the empty school. After some thought, he decides to go to his classroom No. 309 and leave his backpack there. Please note that in reality at 8:15 minutes Donat could not see teacher Yalovik. At that time she was just about to leave her class. What does this mean?
After talking with students and parents, it became clear that the guy himself was very slow. Even when he was late, he walked very slowly. Mom said that when they were late for school, “Donat would get out of the car and walk, his legs tangled.” She often went out and urged him on. Therefore, our measurement of travel time of 2 minutes could be much less than Donat’s. Neither the investigation nor the court took this factor into account.
On the way to class 309 Donat meets French teacher T.V. Goncharenko. According to her testimony, it was at 8:18. This time has been measured and confirmed. Before meeting Donat Skakun, teacher Goncharenko talked with the parent of one student who brought drinking water to school for the children. And she sent a couple of students with this parent to get water. And the video cameras showed when the children walked away from the car with water. It was these guidelines that teacher Goncharenko used. And this was not disputed.
Donat talks to Goncharenko, and the conversation lasts 20 seconds. The teacher asks why he came to school so early today. She knows that his class went on an excursion and only returned in the morning. Goncharenko’s daughter studies in this class. Donat replies that he lives far away, and his mother goes to work and drops him off at school. The teacher says that on the second floor, near the schedule, his friend and classmate Ilya Ulyanovich is sitting and bored. And Donat heads towards his comrade. He spends another 10 seconds on the way from the place of conversation to the door of room 309. He tries to open the classroom door, but it is locked. Then Skakun heads to the place where the schedule hangs.
Ilya Ulyanovich stated in court that when he was sitting and reading a book on the second floor, she passed by him twice French teacher A.S. Kruglinskaya, who told him that she saw Skakun on the third floor, near room 317. And in court, Kruglinskaya said that she saw Donat near the dining room. That is, she changed the testimony she gave immediately after the incident. It turns out that she didn’t immediately remember what happened and how it happened, but a year later she remembered. But Ilya Ulyanovich’s testimony confirms that Kruglinskaya met with Donat around office 317.
In court and during the investigation, Ulyanovich said that Donat came to him at about 8:20. The prosecutor in the trial began to persistently ask if Ilya was sure that the time was exactly 8:20? Ilya said that he remembered this precisely because there were 25 minutes left until the end of the lesson. The court verdict says that Donat came to Ilya at 8:20-8:25, that is, the time was deliberately stretched out, although no one in the testimony said that Donat met with Ilya at 8:25. Question: why does the court itself change the time of Donat’s meeting with Ilya Ulyanovich?
Further on chronologically. Donat persuades Ilya to go outside. Ilya resists for a long time, but later agrees. According to testimony, Skakun persuaded Ulyanovich for about four minutes. A composite dialogue from various testimonies on behalf of Ilya: “Donat came up, said hello, Donat asked what I was doing here, I said that I forgot that there was no first lesson, I was sitting, reading. Donat said that he went, wanted to submit a poem, invited me for a walk, I immediately did not agree. Donat persuaded us, then we thought that first we should leave our things in the gym and then we went.” It turns out that at the end of the 24th minute of the ninth, they headed towards the gym to leave their things there. The journey from the schedule to the gym takes 43 seconds.
The guys come to the gym, pull the door handle - the gym is closed. They slowly walk to the stadium. The time it takes to move through the school to the exit is 2 minutes 46 seconds. The video shows that the guys go outside from the wardrobe. This means that from the gym they took the long route to the school exit. Let us note that for some reason the investigation did not understand why the guys said that they were taking a shortcut. After all, the video footage clearly shows that the guys were leaving by a different route. It is not at all clear why the investigation did not clarify this point. Of course, if an innocent person needs to be accused of a crime, then investigators benefit from the short route version.
At 8:30 the children left school. According to Ulyanovich's testimony, Donat was with him all the time within the limits of his attention. He told investigators about this, who tried to get testimony from Ilya that Donat had the opportunity to quietly throw away the knife. But the investigators did not get this from Ulyanovich. The guy clearly said that they were together all the time, and Skakun did not throw anything away.
Around this time, at 8:30, Donat’s mother received a call from the school principal Vyunova. She was asked to come to school and find Donat, they said that he had attacked a teacher with a knife, and they were worried that Donat would not do anything to himself. Mom works nearby, so she arrived quickly. On the way, she called Donat's father and told her what the school director had told her and asked him to come to school too. My father left work for the gymnasium and called Donat on the way.
After a walk around the school, the boys returned. But they entered the school from a different entrance, where there is no video surveillance, so there is no exact time of return. They went to the third floor to get sports uniforms from their class No. 309, because the next lesson was physical education. Passing by room 317, the guys saw teachers A.S. Kruglinskaya and O.E. Kondratin and talked to them. Donat told them that he had injured his hand at the stadium. Ulyanovich asked the teachers what happened, and they replied that they did not know.
The guys went to the gym to change clothes for physical education class. And here Donat received a call from his father. From the testimony of Donat’s classmates, it is clear that when Donat picked up the phone and started a conversation, in front of the guys’ eyes, his face changed. It was clear that he was very surprised by what he heard. The father asked Donat who he attacked with a knife, said that everyone was looking for him, and that he should go to the school exit, where his mother was waiting for him. Donat met with his mother, and they went to the director’s office. One of the PPS employees then came down from the third floor after them and brought them to the third floor in office No. 316. It was an empty classroom, and here they remained under the guard of this policeman.
Following the verdict, it was established that Donat committed the crime before meeting his classmate. There are no questions about how they then walked around the school, for how long. They were already together all the time. What do we get in the end? Until 8:20 Donat could not attack Gubarevich. According to testimony, Yalovik was with her in class 317. And at 8:20 Donat met with Ulyanovich near the schedule on the second floor.
Now we can ask the investigation and the court, when did Donat commit the crime?
Why wasn’t an investigative experiment conducted at the preliminary stage of the investigation?
Why did the court refuse the request to conduct an investigative experiment?
Draw your own conclusions. A very dark story with many inconsistencies, and many questions left unanswered.
Look
An innocent guy, Donat Skakun, 14 years old, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
The human rights organization, the TimeAct institution, conducted its investigation and found out that Donat Skakun did not have the opportunity to commit a crime.
The Investigative Committee artificially made Donat Skakun guilty.
We have many questions for the investigators, who extracted a confession from the arrested minor boy on the very first night.
Even the court did not recognize this “candid testimony” of Donat as evidence, since it was obtained by illegal methods.
We have many questions for the court, which turned a blind eye to multiple inconsistencies in this criminal case. Moreover, the judge in the protocol of the court session deliberately changed the testimony of witnesses, wrote words and phrases that were not uttered at all in the trial. She sometimes even deleted entire pages of important testimony from witnesses from the court record.
If the guy is guilty, and you think that his guilt has been proven, then why did Judge Zenkevich engage in forgery of evidence, changing important testimony of witnesses?
Donat has an alibi, it is in the materials of this criminal case, why is no one paying attention to it? If the guy is guilty, then why did the investigative committee at the press conference refuse to announce the chronology of the events of the crime? Tell us what time Donat entered the classroom and allegedly attacked the teacher? What time did Donat leave class? Representatives of the Investigative Committee will not be able to answer these questions, because Donat did not commit this crime, he simply did not have time to commit this crime!
Why are there no traces of Donat in the classroom?
Why aren't his fingerprints on the classroom door?
Why didn’t the examination take blood from the front door of the classroom for analysis?
And there are a lot of such “whys”.
This is how the law enforcement system works in Belarus.
In a criminal connection are investigators from the Investigative Committee, prosecutors and judges.
And you cannot open your mouth and be indignant at this arbitrariness of the servants of the people.
And if people are indignant, then officials simply do not pay attention to it.
I am sure that all this arbitrariness will come to an end quickly!
Our strength is in solidarity!
You cannot remain indifferent to human problems.
Tomorrow the same misfortune will knock on your door.
We invite everyone to make sure that Donat’s guilt has not been proven.
The entire accusation is based on the confused, contradictory, and several times changed testimony of teacher Gubarevich,
and all the evidence presented to the court was falsified.
Below are links to the case materials and some important publications on this page.
Former student of Gymnasium 74 Donat Skakun was sentenced to eight years in prison for attacking a Russian language teacher. It would seem that the criminal has been found, and . But on social networksthe controversy continues about whether Donatus is actually guilty. More and more questions are being asked, the answers to which, unfortunately, were not given by either the investigation or the court.
Donat Skakun in the hall of the Minsk City Court before the announcement of the verdict
A year ago in Minsk gymnasium No. 74. A teacher of Russian language and literature was attacked. In crime reports, information appeared that a student tried to stab a teacher because she gave him a low grade. The victim, police said, was taken to intensive care. And the guy was detained right in the gymnasium.
From the first day the case was closed to the public. All court participants signed a non-disclosure agreement. But after the verdict was announced, the information was leaked to social networks.
1. What happened in the gymnasium according to the teacher?
May 23 was a regular school day. The school year was ending, so children who wanted to improve their grades had to “pull up their tails.” In the 9th "B" class, where Donat studied, the first lesson was Russian, but since part of the class had gone on an excursion to Russia the day before, the children were allowed to come to the second lesson - physical education.
Teacher Valentina Gubarevich I arrived at the gymnasium at eight in the morning. First a colleague came into her office, then a student Donat Skakun. He had debts on poems.
Russian language and literature teacher Valentina Gubarevich in court
The boy entered the classroom, put down his briefcase and, as the teacher thought, began to take out a textbook from his bag. However, Valentina Vladimirovna suddenly felt pain in the neck area. The high school student attacked her with a knife. Moreover, the attack took place in two stages. After several blows, Donat left the class, the knife remained on the table. Then he returned to the office and hit the victim several more times, after which he put the knife in his backpack and left.
The first person the victim called was her daughter. Valentina Vladimirovna called her twice. The daughter called an ambulance, and she reported the incident to her mother’s colleagues. The director and head teacher came running into the classroom. An ambulance and the police arrived next. The teacher managed to repeat several times that she was attacked by a gymnasium student, Donat Skakun. After this, the woman was taken to the hospital.
An important point is that there were no direct eyewitnesses to what happened between the teacher and the high school student.
2. What happened in the gymnasium according to the student?
Donat, as usual, was brought to lessons by his mother. He forgot that the first lesson was canceled, so he arrived at eight in the morning. On the spot, he decided to find out whether Gubarevich had come to work to give her the poems by heart, for which he had a debt.
He saw that Valentina Vladimirovna had another teacher in her office and decided to come in later. However, when he tried to do this, the teacher told him that she was busy and that he should come and answer at another time.
Donat went to the classroom, met a French teacher on the way, and talked to her. The teacher said that his classmate was sitting on the second floor and was bored.
Donat went down to him, and together they went for a walk around the school. At the stadium, a guy injured his hand - he caught the fence when he wanted to pass. His friend saw this.
School stadium
Returning to school, the children saw that the police were entering Gubarevich’s office on the third floor. Other teachers stood nearby. Friends asked what happened, but no one knew anything.
The guys went to the locker room. There, Skakun received a call from his father - he was told over the phone that Donat had attacked someone at the gymnasium. At nine in the morning the guy was detained along with a classmate with whom he was walking around the stadium. The friend was released that same evening, but Donat never returned home.
3. Did you want to kill for a bad grade in literature?
According to official data, the motive for the crime was revenge for a biased assessment. We are talking about several bad marks that the guy received for not being able to correctly pass a poem by heart. The relationship with the teacher was indeed strained; Hubarevich called the student’s mother to school.
Donat Skakun was not a poor student or an excellent student, he studied above average. In Gubarevich’s subjects, he scored mostly “sevens” and “eights.” The guy took assessments quite calmly and if he got low scores, he didn’t make a tragedy out of it. He did not plan to enroll after the 9th grade, so it is unlikely that he was very interested in the average score on the certificate. The exact sciences were more interesting to him than the humanities.
By the way, he had no problems with poems on Belarusian literature. Just like with a foreign language, where you also often need to learn “topics”.
Those who know Donat and saw him that day cannot believe that he could commit this crime. Calm, responsive, balanced and even slow - this is how his friends characterize the teenager.
He behaved normally, was not worried and did not attract attention in any way - those who saw the guy in the gymnasium during the first lesson, when the attack on the teacher, spoke about his condition on May 23.
The teenager's condition changed only when his father called him and said that he was suspected of committing a crime. Hearing this, Donat widened his eyes in surprise.
4. Where is the knife with which they tried to kill the teacher?
On May 25, that is, two days after the tragedy, the Minister of Internal Affairs announced that law enforcement officers had found the crime weapon.
"The knife was found,- said Igor Shunevich. - The handle, the blade are sharpened... The knife consists of this. The child had the knife.”
But in fact, the knife with which they tried to kill Valentina Gubarevich was not found.
The operative part of the verdict, which the judge read out in front of journalists, said that the knife blade, discovered and seized on May 24 (the day after the assassination - ed.) during an inspection at 8 Artillery Street, should be destroyed.
The gymnasium is located at Artilleristov, 15, that is, on the opposite side of the street. The knife blade was found near an office building where access control is in effect.
The building near which the knife blade was found
However, this find has nothing in common with the knife that was used to kill the teacher. The victim herself described the weapon differently.
It turns out that there is no key evidence in the case, although law enforcement officers carefully examined both the gymnasium and the surrounding area, using sniffer dogs.
A friend who wandered around the stadium with Donat before classes said that he did not see him hide or throw away the knife during the walk. The guys did not part from the moment they met.
5. Why didn’t anyone notice the blood on Donat’s clothes?
Several people saw Donat at the gymnasium on the morning of May 23. However, no one noticed that the guy behaved suspiciously and that there were traces of blood on his clothes after he, according to the investigation, tried to kill the teacher.
The student's belongings were carefully examined by specialists. At the same time, the shoes arrived for examination in an open package. When examining the backpack, where, according to the teacher, Donat threw the bloody knife, no blood was found. However, in court it turned out that there was no protocol for examining the backpack in the case at all, so this item was not considered as evidence.
Witnesses did not see blood on Donat’s clothes, but, according to experts, there were traces of blood on the guy’s jacket, trousers, shirt and shoes, which could come from Gubarevich.
Skakun's defense tried to convey that the blood on the guy's clothes appeared after his things were packed by a police officer, who had previously helped move Hubarevich, that is, he had contact with her body, where there was blood. But this argument was considered far-fetched.
6. Why was a 15-year-old boy forced to write a confession?
Donat was detained half an hour after the attempt was made on the teacher. His parents immediately came to the gymnasium, the father and his son went to the police station.
Donat Skakun's parents
At the police department, the father was told to go for an examination, and when he returned, he was no longer allowed to see the child. The lawyer, who spent almost seven hours in the police station, was not allowed to see the teenager.
The first interrogation was scheduled for eight in the evening of the same day, but the lawyer advised against it, since Donat looked exhausted and exhausted.
The next day, the family learned that the schoolboy had written a confession that night. According to the guy, he wrote what the investigator dictated to him. The family was told that Donat must now repeat all this on camera.
Donat was 15 years old at the time of interrogation. They had no right to interrogate him at night, and even without the participation of a lawyer, one of the parents, a teacher or a psychologist. The investigator was well aware of this, but this did not stop him. In court, he stated that the student voluntarily wrote a sincere confession. By the way, they also did not have the right to call the investigator to court, since by law he cannot be a witness.
After such methods of investigation, Donat decided to refuse to testify. However, it is known that the young man passed a polygraph.
“There is a certificate in the file that, according to the results of a polygraph test, no information of significance in this criminal case was obtained,”- told "Euroradio" Donat's mother.
The victim teacher refused to take a polygraph. Let us note that taking a lie detector test is a right, not an obligation, of a participant in the process.
7. Why was the investigative experiment not carried out?
Donat Skakun was accused of making an attempt on Valentina Hubarevich between 08:00 and 08:40. However, the video cameras installed in the gymnasium show that at 08:30 he had already gone outside with a friend.
In court, the period of the crime was reduced - from 08:13 to 08:30 minutes. But there are discrepancies here too.
At 08:30 Donat and his friend had already left the school. According to the friend, Skakun approached him at approximately 08:20. Hubarevich called her daughter at 08:24 for the first time and at 08:30 for the second time to report the attack.
The Russian language room is located on the third floor. The horse needed time to meet a friend on the second floor, talk to him, walk around the school, and only after that go down together to the first floor and go outside.
Many also raised questions about why the teacher did not immediately dial 103 and why she did not resist the attacker - none of the witnesses heard screams or noise from the struggle. Acquaintances describe Donat as a slow and calm person, Valentina Vladimirovna as a fighting and confident woman.
Perhaps some contradictions would have been resolved if an investigative experiment had been carried out. For crimes involving an attempt on human life, this is common practice.
Donat's mother stated that there was such a petition, but the investigator rejected it. The case file did not even contain a plan for the gymnasium.
8. What was the general situation like during Gubarevich’s lessons and what did they think about her at the gymnasium?
Valentina Gubarevich is an experienced teacher, she is 58 years old. Everyone who knows her unanimously says that she is a demanding teacher. Gubarevich’s qualifications did not raise any questions; her students won competitions. But the methods she used in the lessons are assessed ambiguously.
Firstly, she regularly raised her voice at the children. During the lesson I could say: “I will not work with unmotivated children!” or "Between me and you (student - ed.) the director will choose me! Some children were simply afraid to go to her lessons, because she was a person of mood - she could shout and give an unfair grade.
Secondly, she practiced seating children “according to knowledge.” That is, in her classes the guys sat differently than usual. Valentina Vladimirovna explained this by saying that motivated students needed to be grouped in one place so that she could give them tasks of a more complex level. The children made conclusions for themselves about who is “smart” and who is “stupid.”
However, most often conflicts arose with the guys who wanted high grades, but did not want to work hard. In this case, their parents needed grades more.
There was one more episode. Hubarevich let the children leave their lessons so that they could take the money collected for the excursion to the travel agency where her daughter worked. That is, two schoolchildren across the city carried over a thousand USD on public transport. And management was aware of this scheme.
According to parents whose children studied at the 74th gymnasium, they repeatedly complained about the Russian language teacher to both the class teacher and the director. But the administration tried to smooth things over; teachers were not replaced.
“Throughout the entire proceedings, my lawyer and I asked the court for mercy and leniency towards the young man,”- Valentina Hubarevich said after the verdict was announced.
The teenager was indeed given the minimum possible punishment under his article - eight years in prison in a correctional colony. But the victim, according to Donat’s mother, asked to give him 11 years.
According to her, neither Donat nor his parents asked her for forgiveness. At the same time, the schoolboy’s family paid the teacher $23,000 in compensation even before the end of the trial.
9. Why was Donat’s case considered behind closed doors?
According to the law, closed court hearings are permitted in cases of crimes committed by persons under 16 years of age. Donat was 15 years old at the beginning of the trial.
The parents and the accused himself did not insist on a closed trial and hoped that the trial would take place in the open.
10. If Donat is not guilty, then who attacked the teacher?
From the first minutes when they began to help her, Valentina Gubarevich called only one last name - Skakun. And this was the only version on which the investigation worked.
Although in Donat’s support groups there are other options: that another student could have attacked her, and that the attacker could not have been a high school student at all, and even that the teacher could have injured herself.
It's hard to believe that someone dared to falsify a case against a 15-year-old teenager. But if a person is charged with such serious charges, and Part 2 of Art. 139 is called the “execution article”, the evidence must be indisputable. In the case of the high school student, many questions, unfortunately, remained unanswered.
The case of Donat Skakun will still be considered by the Supreme Court, which received a complaint against the verdict.
For the attempted murder of a teacher of Russian language and literature, he passed the 9th grade exams in the Bobruisk educational colony with three grades.
We believe that this is a great merit to the school and the educational colony. Everything worked out thanks to the director of this school, we are sincerely grateful to him. He told Donat that we should write another application to the Ministry of Education - Donat was allowed to take the exam. He tried very hard, prepared and was worried - he wanted everything to work out,” says Alina, the guy’s mother.
Let us remind you that the emergency happened in gymnasium No. 74 in Minsk in May 2016. According to investigators, that morning, 9th grade student Donat Skakun entered the classroom, closed the door behind him and inflicted 17 knife wounds on Russian language and literature teacher Valentina Gubarevich. The former high school student was sentenced in April 2017; the Supreme Court considered the appeal in September and upheld the sentence. All this time, Donat Skakun was in a pre-trial detention center and tried to pass exams.
We had the investigator’s permission, the pre-trial detention center was ready to provide us with a room, but we were denied permission from the 74th gymnasium,” recalls Alina. - We are very glad that now everything has finally worked out.
Philologist Svetlana Bogush from Minsk helped Donat prepare for language exams - she wrote him a letter to the colony and offered her help.
I was very touched by this story, I wanted to support the boy in such a situation. But I didn’t want to write a banal “hang in there” - I started thinking about what exactly I could do for Donat, and the idea arose to help him prepare for language exams. I wrote a letter with this proposal, and he agreed.
Svetlana says that she herself did not fully understand how the training would take place, but in the end everything worked out.
I sent assignments, Donat did them, I checked them, sorted out errors and sent new assignments. Donat began and ended each of his letters with words of gratitude. I am very glad that he passed all his exams with flying colors, but I don’t think that I had anything to do with this - he is a very capable and smart boy.
Donat writes 4-5 letters to parents a week. He says that he likes it at school - there, according to him, there are good teachers.
He says that time flies by very quickly. At first I even thought that the lessons were not 45, but 30 minutes long,” laughs Alina, the mother of a teenager. - Donat plans to get a specialty in the colony: they have a vocational school, by the summer he will decide where he will enroll, and says that he can even get several specialties in time. He and his dad really loved working with wood - so, if it works out, he will go to study to become a carpenter.
Alina says that Donat is busy all day: in the morning he goes to work, then to school, or vice versa. And in the evening the son writes letters, time flies by.
“For us, every day is hard, it drags on for a long time,” the interlocutor says quietly. - A month ago we had a four-hour date. Donat said that the situation in the colony was normal, the guys were good - he met some of them back in the pre-trial detention center. They helped him adapt and treated him well. It is clear that he is trying to protect us from some worries. But I think it’s quite difficult for him. Many letters are written to him, and strangers, classmates, and teachers support him.
Now the parents are waiting for a response from the Supreme Court to the supervisory complaint.