A Moscow Regional Court jury has found Kaliningrad doctors Elina Sushkevich and Elena Belaya guilty in the death of a premature newborn and deemed them undeserving of leniency. The final verdict, based on the jury’s decision, is scheduled to be announced on July 31.

The case has seen several twists and turns. Initially, in September 2022, Sushkevich and Belaya received sentences of 9 and 9.5 years respectively in a general regime penal colony for the child’s murder.

According to the prosecution, Elena Belaya, then the head doctor of Kaliningrad maternity hospital No. 4, allegedly proposed to Elina Sushkevich, a resuscitator-anesthesiologist at the Regional Perinatal Center, that they kill the premature infant of a 27-year-old woman from Uzbekistan. The motive, according to the prosecution, was to avoid negatively impacting the hospital’s statistics, which could hinder Belaya’s career advancement.

Prosecutors argued that the infant was administered a lethal dose of a drug, leading to the child’s death. Following this, a false entry was allegedly made in the child’s medical records, indicating that the death occurred in utero. Both Belaya and Sushkevich have consistently maintained their innocence.

Prior to the 2022 sentencing, in December 2020, a jury acquitted Belaya and Sushkevich, leading to their acquittal by the Kaliningrad Regional Court. However, in May 2021, the case was sent for a retrial in the Moscow region. This time, both the jury and the judge sided with the prosecution.

The case’s complexities led to further review. On October 2 of the previous year, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ordered the case to be reviewed in the appellate instance.