Mother of beaten disabled teen from Rostov complains about witnesses' indifference

A Rostov resident has pleaded guilty to beating a disabled teenager in a shopping centre; the case has been sent to the court. Two men were beating up the boy, but eyewitnesses refused to testify against the second attacker, the teen's mother has complained.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 2, 2023, according to the mother of the 14-year-old boy, two men for no reason beat her disabled son up in a shopping centre in Rostov-on-Don. Law enforcers detained the attackers; and the case was initiated under the article on hooliganism with the use of violence committed by a group of persons.

"My son can't speak; and he almost doesn't hear ... Doctors told us not to make him nervous, because we can hardly stop his attacks. But they brutally beat him on the head," the mother said. According to investigators, two local residents aged 44 and 37, out of hooligan motives, used physical force against the 14-year-old boy, as a result of which he fell down, hitting against the floor.

"In April 2023, the accused person, being in a state of intoxication ... unreasonably expressed insults to a 14-year-old disabled boy, and then used violence against him," says the website of the Rostov regional branch of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).

The branch has failed to specify why suspicions were removed from the second detainee.

Investigators "put everything on one detainee, because they failed to collect evidence on the second attacker," the mother has suggested, noting that eyewitnesses were afraid to testify.

The woman has added that her son's health deteriorated after the beating.