Four Russian servicemen in the occupied Donetsk region have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 12 years for the murder of pro-Russian American Russell Bentley, who also worked for the propaganda media 'Sputnik', LETA reports citing BBC.
The Southern District Military Court reported that Vitaly Vantsyatsky and Andrey Iordanov were sentenced to 12 years in a strict regime, Vladislav Agaltsev to 11 years in a strict regime, and Vladimir Bazhin to one year and six months in a correctional colony.
They were charged with abuse of official powers, use of physical violence and torture resulting in the unintentional death of the victim, as well as concealing a particularly serious crime by moving the body, the Investigative Committee of Russia previously stated.
In April last year, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian state propaganda outlet RT, reported that 64-year-old Bentley from Texas was killed in Donetsk.
The investigation established that on April 8, 2024, in Donetsk, Vantsyatsky, Agaltsev, and Iordanov used physical violence and tortured Bentley, leading to the American's death.
On the same day, Vantsyatsky and Agaltsev blew up a car filled with TNT containing the body of the American, and on April 9, Bazhin, who served in the same unit, moved the body to another location on Vantsyatsky's orders to conceal the crime.
Bentley had lived in Donetsk for the last ten years and had managed to obtain a Russian passport.
He arrived in the Russia-controlled part of the Donetsk region in 2014, initially fighting as part of the 'Vostok' formation, then becoming a volunteer for a humanitarian mission and a blogger.
Kremlin propagandists have repeatedly reported on the American who 'believed in the Russian world.'
On April 8 last year, Bentley went to the site of shelling in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk and went missing.
According to his wife Lyudmila, Bentley was detained and then tortured by Russian servicemen, hoping to gain material benefits. A friend of his wife claimed that the American died from an electric shock. There is also a version that the military suspected Bentley of spying on them.
