The panel of judges of Pervomaisky district court of Mykolaiv region has read out the verdicts for the four defendants in Vradiivka rape case, Yevhen Dryzhak, Dmytro Polischuk, Serhiy Rabinenko and Mykhailo Kudrynsky.

The court sentenced Dryzhak to 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of his police rank, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

Polischuk was also sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of his police rank.

Kudrynsky was sentenced to five years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of his police rank.

Rabynenko was sentenced to eleven years of imprisonment with confiscation of all property.

This court ruling can be appealed against.

As reported, on June 26, two police officers and a taxi driver pulled a 29-year-old woman, Iryna Krashkova, into a car in the village of Vradiivka, Mykolaiv region, and took her to a nearby forest, where they beat her up and raped her. The victim was hospitalized with fractures of the skull, cuts to the head and face, and multiple severe bruises.

The rape victim said that the perpetrators were two police officers - Lieutenant Dmytro Polischuk and Senior Lieutenant Yevhen Dryzhak – and a local taxi driver, Mykhailo Rabinenko.

Polischuk and Rabinenko were detained on June 30, while the fact that the second policeman, Dryzhak, who supposedly had an alibi, was not immediately detained triggered protests by local residents, who demanded his arrest.

On July 1, local residents stormed the district police department demanding that the police officers involved be prosecuted.

Dryzhak was detained on July 2.

Three suspects were changed from causing grievous bodily harm to an attempted murder committed with extreme cruelty with selfish motives, in order to conceal another crime by prior agreement of the parties.

Deputy Chief of Vradiyivka police department Major Mykhailo Kudrinskiy was charged with concealing the crime.