Drunken driver who killed a motor-cyclist convicted (photo)

On February 14, the court issued the long-expected verdict to the inhabitant of Kastsyukovichy who had committed the scandalous accident. The driver ran over a motor-cyclist who was waiting for the green lights. The driver was moving with murderous intensity. It happened at the central cross-roads in Kastsyukovichy - a small town in the East of Belarus - on September 23, 2011. 

The car dragged the motor-cyclist for several dozen meters. Only the stone fence made it stop. An then an unexplainable brutality happened. The driver went out of the car, came over to the motor-cyclist's body and...started kicking it!

A photo of the accident site, several hours later

A 16-year-old girl Alena, one of the eye-witnesses of the accident, shows the accident site and recalls how it was.

"The car was dragging the motor-cyclist until it crashed into a fence. The driver went out and I realized he was very drunk, by his appearance. I ran up to the place and followed him. He approached the motor-cyclist, kicked him several times and said "He'll survive".

The "Audi" driver managed to escape from the accident site, as the passers-by were shocked. The drunken 20-year-old driver was detained only the next morning after the accident. The quantity of alcohol in his blood was 1.7 parts per mille.

Motor-cyclist Zhenya Barautsou died of numerous injuries 10 days after the accident. He didn't live just a week to see his 19th birthday. 

Yauhenij Barautsou (right) was a student of Homel engineering university and worked in the Ministry of Emergency Situations

The story made a great noise in Kastsyukovichy. The local youth were incensed as there were rumours in the little town that the driver might get a small term.

The court of Kastsyukovichy decided to punish the guilty with four years of living in a special colony-settlement, and paying 15 million roubles to the victim's family. The colony-settlement is not prison, it is the territory at which a convict is allowed to move freely. There are no guards - just administration, which may give permit to leave the territory from time to time.

Local youngsters on the way to one of the court trials, holding photos of the deceased 

Alyaksandr, the elder brother of the deceased motor-cyclist, is convinced that the Belarusian legislation is too mild with regard to the drunk driving:

"He may be released from this colony-settlement for good behaviour in some six months, and only come there for checking from time to time. The sum which he is supposed to pay us does not cover our moral and material damage as our mother's health deteriorated after the accident and the medicines are expensive. I'm afraid that drunken drivers will go on killing innocent people and will get ridiculous punishments for that".

Alyaksandr and his friends intend to turn the public's attention to the necessity to make punishment for drunk driving stricter.

Yauhen Barautsou is one of nearly 200 people who died on the roads of Belarus because of drunken drivers. In 2011, the traffic police revealed more than 50 thousand (!) facts of drunk driving.

Youth of Kastsyukovichy placed a poster saying "Stop Killers on the Road!!!" with a crossed-out bottle, at the accident site

In many countries, those who commit drunk driving, let alone causing damage, are often punished with big fines and imprisonment. Meanwhile, in Belarus one gets administrative punishment for the first time. 

It is illustrative that the tragic and comic story connected with drunk driving happened exactly in Kastsyukovichy, a month before this accident. More than a million people watched the video where an absolutely drunk woman-driver is detained by the traffic policemen, which was filmed by a witness with his cell-phone camera. She was punished with 3 days of detention and a fine of a little more than 1 million Belarusian roubles. Maybe, if that lady was punished more severely, it would prevent the drunken inhabitant of Kastsyukovichy from driving on September 23...

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