News

Due to publications of several media sources questioning legitimacy of charges and issuance of a wanted warrant for Cravers, the Russian Investigative Committee announces that a criminal case against the Cravers suspected of killing their underage adopted Russian son Vanya Skorobogatov, a crime under paragraph «в», part 2, article 105 of the RCC, was opened by General Investigative Directorate of the Russian Investigative Committee as early as March 5, 2011 (long before the U.S. court).

During the investigation Russian side on agreement with Consulate General of the Russian Federation in the USA has received separate files and added them to the case. From these files it is obvious that the U.S. competent bodies accuse the couple of grave carelessness or negligence which caused death of Vanya Skorobogatov.

As appears from the report of pathologists, who carried out autopsy, that there were 80 injuries, of which about 20 were found on his head and accompanied by intracranial hemorrhages, edema and brain damage, therefore their inflection was recognized as the cause of the child’s death. In addition, the expert noted that the boy was suffering from malnutrition which made for his death.

Thereby, there is enough ground to assume that the U.S. citizens committed against the RF citizen a crime which is qualified as especially grave, considering this on November 21 of this year the Craveres were charged with intentional inflection of death to a child (paragraphs «в», «ж», part 2, article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code). Appeals are also forwarded to court stating a demand to put the accused into custody.

The investigation has also checked the legality of adoption by Cravers of sister and brother Skorobogatovs; the couple’s claims that Vanya had been suffering from mental disorder and this made him to cause injuries to himself were rejected. The experts conducted a postmortem psychological examination of the boy’s personality according to which he was not suffering from any kind of mental disorder.

Considering that the Cravers have had no records on intentional actions causing a child’s death and have never been convicted for this in the USA, the Russian Investigative Committee is going to use against the accused all tools of penal constraint provided by Russian and international law.