First they were acquitted, then they were sent to a colony

What were Belaya and Sushkevich accused of?

In November 2018, 27-year-old Zamirahon Akhmedova was admitted to the maternity hospital No. 4 in Kaliningrad at the 24th week of pregnancy. She gave birth to a premature boy weighing about 700 grams, but a few hours later, after the intervention of doctors, the child died .

According to the prosecution, the acting head physician, Elena Belaya, told neonatologist Elina Sushkevich to inject the baby with a lethal dose of magnesium sulfate. According to the investigation, they believed that due to severe congenital pathologies and prematurity, the boy would not survive anyway, and, in order not to spoil the statistics of the medical institution, they decided to kill the child and record that the death occurred during childbirth.

What happened according to doctors

Elena Belaya did not deny that the child was born alive. Belaya explained his death by the wrong actions of her colleagues: according to her, when she appeared at work at 08:40, "she was horrified." However, by that time, Belaya said , the child was not in a transportable state to the perinatal center, where he could be helped. According to Belaya , Akhmedova initially should not have given birth in her maternity hospital, but immediately go to where there are "qualified specialists and appropriate equipment."

Sushkevich said that the child really had a chance to survive if he had been helped from the very beginning. “But, unfortunately, I was called too late, and for such children every second counts,” she explained.

Exceeding the level of magnesium in the body of a child Sushkevich considers an error of expertise. She is sure that the chemist who conducted her compared the magnesium levels in the blood of a dead newborn with the norm for an adult.

In 2020, Sushkevich said that after the arrest, she did not immediately become afraid. “At first I thought: “Now I will explain to you in the Investigative Committee how mistaken you are.” They will say to me: “We misunderstood the situation.” And they will let me go. And everything will end, ”said Sushkevich.

Why did this case get public attention?

Many representatives of the professional community spoke out in defense of Sushkevich and Belaya, including the head physicians of several Moscow hospitals, as well as organizations that protect the rights of doctors and patients: the Alliance of Doctors, the Fund for Helping Premature Babies "The Right to a Miracle".

The state prosecution requested 13 years in prison for Belaya and Sushkevich. In another similar high-profile case, when a Moscow hematologist Elena Misyurina was accused of the death of a patient due to an allegedly incorrectly taken bone marrow sample, the court sentenced her to two years in prison. Later, this sentence was overturned, and the criminal case was closed for lack of corpus delicti.

How did the first trial end and why did the second one begin?

The verdict in the case was delivered by a jury of the Kaliningrad Regional Court. On December 10, 2020, the jury declared Belaya and Sushkevich innocent. During the investigation and trial, they spent about a year and a half under house arrest.

After being acquitted in court, Belaya and Sushkevich were released and returned to work.

According to the court, the jury was allegedly pressured by the media. The Prosecutor General's Office appealed the verdict. In May 2021, the acquittal in the case of Belaya and Sushkevich was overturned by the First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction in Moscow.

What happened next

In June 2021, the Supreme Court moved the retrial of the criminal case from Kaliningrad to the Moscow Regional Court. This was requested by Deputy Prosecutor General Igor Tkachev.

On October 4, 2021, the Moscow Regional Court sent Belaya and Sushkevich to a pre-trial detention center: the prosecution insisted that they could hide and put pressure on the jury and witnesses. In Kaliningrad, Sushkevich and Belaya were under house arrest, and when the trial was moved to Moscow, the judge justified the change in the measure of restraint by the fact that the defendants do not have registration in the Moscow region.

“This case goes beyond the bounds of decency,” said Leonid Roshal, president of the Union of the Medical Community “National Medical Chamber,” at the time. - Obviously, the task is to sue. And we will continue to protect the doctor [Sushkevich]. And today, as I already suggested in the case of the doctor Misyurina, I again propose - release the doctor from custody. I'm ready to sit for her." Why Roshal did not mention Belaya in his statement, he did not explain.

At the end of August 2022, the jury found Sushkevich and Belaya guilty, and on September 6, 2022, the court announced its decision in the case: nine and nine and a half years in prison, respectively.

In the last word, Sushkevich asked the court, despite the fact that the jury had already considered her guilty, to pass a verdict of not guilty. “Whatever decision the court makes today, I did not kill the child and did not inject him with magnesia. <...> I am not ashamed to look into the eyes of my colleagues and teachers who taught me to save, nurse and be for each child not just a doctor, but a mother, because parents trust us with the most valuable thing - the life of their child. I am not ashamed to look into the eyes of my mother, who raised me alone, who raised me as an honest and conscientious person, who was able to give me the best education, - Sushkevich said in court. “And mom knows she raised a doctor, not a killer.”