According to Mash Telegram , a court in Siberia has handed down a suspended sentence to a defendant in a criminal case, considering cat ownership as one of the mitigating factors. This is believed to be the first time such a decision has been made in Russia.
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Specifically, the 48-year-old defendant from the city of Kemerovo was charged with hooliganism and illegal possession of a firearm, for attacking another person while drunk in September. According to reports, he also threatened the victim with a gun.
The suspect was later arrested by police, cooperated with the investigation, pleaded guilty, and eventually appeared in court. The judge convicted him on all charges, some of which carried a maximum sentence of up to five years behind bars.
However, the court gave the man a suspended sentence with several mitigating factors, including poor health, cooperation with law enforcement and keeping cats.
According to local media, keeping a cat has never been considered a mitigating circumstance in Russian criminal law before, with defendants only being able to expect a certain degree of leniency from judges if they have children or have to care for relatives.
According to RT, the court has not commented on this decision.
In another bizarre case, Russian police caught a female drug dealer in the city of Nizhny Tagil, Urals, hiding a large amount of metamfepramone in the clothes of the cat she was carrying, pretending it was a child.
“To avoid suspicion, she posed as a mother walking with her daughter and her newborn baby. However, in the thermal clothing for babies that the subjects were wearing, there was a cat,” said Russian Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk.
During the search, police seized five packets of metamfepramone, an illegal stimulant. According to investigators, the suspect obtained the pills following instructions from an anonymous online buyer, then divided them into smaller packets for distribution to end users. She made 12 payments before being arrested by police.
Further evidence was found at the woman’s rented apartment, including digital scales, containers of drugs and other illegal substances. A total of 170 grams of drugs were seized during the search, according to Russian authorities – an amount considered “significant” under Russian law, which can result in a prison sentence of eight to 15 years.
Phuong Anh (Source: RT)
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