Vladivostok Novosti Company
October 03, 2007

American soldier jailed for 9 years in Khabarovsk

Combined reports

Courtesy of Kommersant on-line at http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y.aspx?DocsID=810506 . Christopher Garner entering the defendants’ cage before the murder trail on October 2 in Khabarovsk Industrialny District Court.

Photo by Igor Balabanov

Courtesy of Kommersant on-line at http://www.kommersant.ru/doc-y.aspx?DocsID=810506 . Christopher Garner entering the defendants’ cage before the murder trail on October 2 in Khabarovsk Industrialny District Court.


Khabarovsk court on Tuesday sentenced an American citizen Christopher Garner to nine years in a maximum-security prison for murdering his wife’s relative during an argument over a one-room apartment.

The court found Garner, 30, an active duty U.S. Army technology specialist who had served in Iraq and Kuwait, guilty of the killing of Alexander Kaminsky, 56, an uncle of Garner’s wife Svetlana, in September 2006.

The Garners arrived in Khabarovsk to attend the funeral of Svetlana’s aunt. According to the aunt’s last will, Svetlana had to inherit a one-room apartment.

Kaminsky was dissatisfied with this fact and initiated a quarrel, threatening Svetlana with an axe. Defending his wife, Garner killed Kaminsky with a steel rope. The Garners hid the body of the murdered relative in a bag and dumped it 400 kilometers away.

The couple then flew to Moscow where they decided to come to US Embassy with admittance of murder before turning themselves in to police.

During the trial the prosecutors insisted that Garner should receive 11 years in prison. The court ruled a 9-year sentence.

Garner’s defense said that they intended to appeal the ruling. “We consider Garner’s actions as self-defense since he was protecting his wife, mother of his three children,” Garner’s advocate Viktor Kobzar said, The Kommersant reported. Svetlana faced no charges.


From Kommersant on-line and Vesti.Ru
Other materials of this Issue:
Australian frigate visits Vladivostok
Movie theater in Nakhodka on fire
Ship wrecks in Okhotsk Sea, 2 sailors found dead
Japanese delegation searches soldiers’ remains in Primorye
Chinese policeman attacked in Blagoveshchensk
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