MOSCOW: Russell Bentley, a US nationwide who went lacking in Russian-controlled japanese Ukraine early this 12 months, is believed to have been tortured to demise by Russian troopers who are actually set to go on trial, Russia’s prime investigative physique mentioned on Friday (Sep 20).
Bentley died within the Russian-controlled metropolis of Donetsk in April, Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia’s state media outlet RT, wrote on the time, saying he had been “preventing there for our guys” and dealing with Russia’s Sputnik information service.
Bentley, born in 1960, was a self-declared supporter of Russian-backed forces in Ukraine. The Russian state information company RIA reported that he had joined pro-Russian fighters in japanese Ukraine in 2014, later working with Sputnik and acquiring Russian citizenship.
The Investigative Committee mentioned in a press release that it had accomplished its probe and accused three Russian servicemen of torturing Bentley to demise in Donetsk on Apr 8.
It mentioned two of the troopers had then put his physique in a automobile and blown it up. A fourth soldier had been ordered the next day to maneuver Bentley’s stays to a different location in an try to hide the crime.
The Committee’s assertion mentioned the accused troopers, whom it named, had been familiarising themselves with the allegations earlier than the indictment was despatched for approval.
It mentioned they’d variously be tried on expenses starting from exceeding their authority, utilizing bodily violence and torture, and inflicting demise by negligence, to tried concealment of a severe crime. It didn’t say whether or not or not they’d denied the accusations.
Russian media retailers have advised that the troopers might have mistaken Bentley – the topic of a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone journal titled The Weird Story of How a Hardcore Texas Leftist Turned a Frontline Putin propagandist – for a US spy.
