Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, March 31, 2015
The regional court of the Russian town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has sentenced on Tuesday Stepan Komarov, who shot dead Nun Lyudmila (Pryashnikova) and parishioner Vladimir Zaporozhets and wounded seven people in the town’s Holy Resurrection Cathedral, to 24 years of imprisonment to be served at the Strict regime colony, reported a spokesman of Interfax from the courtroom.
The court has ruled that the crime was committed on the grounds of religious hatred.
The court partly satisfied the suits of the victims who sought compensation for moral damages: instead of the 32.5 million rubles which they had claimed, the court awarded them 7.5 million rubles. The court resolved that compensation for material damages should be claimed in the civil court.
Evgeny Efimchuk, S. Komarov’s counsel for the defense, refused to comment on the sentence and on a possible appeal against it to Interfax.
According to the court’s information, at the initial stage of the investigation S. Komarov confessed his guilt and cooperated with the investigation. Then he explained he had come to the church to shoot its icons as he hated the Russian Orthodox Church, while he did not intend to murder the parishioners. He claimed he had shot the parishioners only when they refused to obey his command to leave the temple. But later he repudiated his testimony. According to the court’s data, S. Komarov started shooting the parishioners in the church, “deliberately killing two parishioners on the grounds of religious hatred”.
In February 2014 the “Centuria” private security firm worker S. Komarov entered the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk cathedral and fired his service weapon several times, killing Nun Lyudmila who worked in the cathedral and parishioner Vladimir who had been begging alms on the church porch and ran into the temple on hearing the sound of shooting. Seven more people were wounded. In addition to this, Komarov shot the cathedral’s icons and the cross that hung above the altar doors.
