AN EVIL father who beat and tortured his three-year-old son to death will be shot in the back of the head as punishment.
The young boy looked "like a skeleton" at 15lbs when he died in January after his father kicked him in the head.
A heartbreaking picture on the boy's gravestone showed him with an injured nose from a wound inflicted by his parents.
Alexander Taratuta, 48, was sentenced to death for the brutal torture and murder of his son Semyon.
He will be shot in the back of the head in Belarus, the only country in Europe to carry out capital punishment.
His wife Anastasia Taratuta, 37, was sentenced to 25 years in a strict regime penal colony for the murder of their child Semyon.
Read more crime news
BODY IN FREEZER
Reward of £20k offered for info on mysterious death of man found in freezer
NHS LETBY FEAR
Letby investigators will probe management across wider NHS in public inquiry
The death penalty – by a state executioner – is not allowed for women in Belarus.
Both “calmly listened to their sentences” while handcuffed in a glass court cage, reported Sputnik media.
The father constantly looked away from the camera as a judge handed down the verdict, while the mother was seen holding her hands over her face in the dock as he was condemned to death.
A court was told how the "wealthy" couple inflicted a life of “pure hell” on the boy.
Most read in The Sun
POIGNANT TRIBUTE
He lit a spliff & passed away, says Paul O’Grady’s husband at memorial
FINAL WHISTLE
BBC axes football show less than a month after Alex Scott & Dan Walker’s row
CANCER MIRACLE
Noddy returns to stage after docs gave him 6 months to live 5 years ago
STORM TRAGEDY
Storm Babet claims 1st victim as woman, 57, dies after being swept into river
He was forced to sleep on bare linoleum and was often numb from the cold at their privately-owned home in Slutsk, 65 miles south of capital Minsk.
His mother – a Russian citizen – regularly punched Semyon in the face, threw him at her husband or at the wall. She also dropped him into the bath.
The three-year-old was tied to a table leg, and at other times, his hands were tethered and food was dangled in front of his face.
Semyon was starved over a long period, weighing only 15lbs at the age of three when he died.
“His parents, instead of watching over him, simply insulted, humiliated and beat him,” said one court report.
The father denied cruelty, claiming he wanted to “educate” his son.
As “punishment” for soiling the floor, the terrified boy was put in the bath and objects were thrown at him.
He eventually died on January 4 this year after his father kicked him in the head “to make him sit on the floor”.
The child fell, “showing no signs of life”.
A post mortem found Semyon had eight other serious wounds inflicted by his parents.
A paramedic doctor who confirmed Semyon’s death, said: “The boy was very thin, like a skeleton, covered in skin, looking like an African child with a big belly.
“There was an abrasion on his head and a piece of hair was missing.”
The child’s eye socket was “torn almost to the temple”.
The couple shared two other children, both daughters, now aged four and one, and Anastasia had custody of the elder of two sons, 14 and 12, from a previous relationship.
All are now in care and formal legal procedures are underway to deprive the couple of their parental rights.
Anastasia has two older children, but the horrific child abuse was reserved for Semyon.
Social services chief Galina Shaduro said the family was “wealthy”.
Both parents saw their elder daughter as a “princess”, while the youngest was also doted on.
After Semyon died, mother Anastasia went to a shop and bought lollipops for her two other young children.
The Belarus general prosecutor said the couple were motivated by “personal hostility” against the boy.
They aimed to kill him, said the office.
“On the basis of personal hostility towards their obviously young son Semyon, with the aim of murder, they struck him in the presence of his younger brother with … hands and feet at least nine times, seven of which were to the head.
“The defendants were aware that by inflicting multiple blows on the boy with significant force, including with booted feet, on the head, torso and limbs, they were causing his son prolonged physical pain, special torture and suffering.”
In his “last word” to the court, Taratuta, a Belarus citizen who earlier worked at a clothing factory, said he regretted that his life “turned out this way”.
He “felt sorry that the last strike" on his son was "too strong”.
“There were no intentions, no conspiracies. I didn’t want to kill, there were no such thoughts,” he said.
His wife was condemned in one court report as a “cheap actress who pretended to be a heartbroken mother during the final court session”.
She had written a final speech to the court, but refused to read it.
The father can appeal his sentence from Death Row and seek a pardon from Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, but such moves seldom change count decisions on executions.
Read More on The Sun
MORE MAFS
MAFS UK set for explosive secret 'bonus' episode after most dramatic series yet
GUEST FROM HELL
I let my pal's son stay but he wouldn't leave… the ordeal cost me £1k
Those facing the death penalty are blindfolded and forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the head.
The method is similar to that used in Stalin times in the USSR.
Source: Read Full Article