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“My son was killed for an expensive mobile telephone,” says Yelena Salnikova, mother of the cadet who was found hanged in an Ussurisk military school on February 22.

Ilya Salnikov, 17, was finishing his last year at Suvorov military school in Ussurisk, a town located 112 kilometers from Vladivostok.

“He had tense relations with three of his classmates. He told me that earlier they had demanded an expensive telephone from him and pocket money I gave him,” she revealed in a telephone interview on Thursday. “The only version which I have is that my son was killed. He could not commit suicide, he had plans to become a lawyer,” the woman said.

The military prosecutors for the Far Eastern region reported that the body of the cadet was found in his room on the school’s campus. Investigators are interrogating the student’s fellow cadets and commanders.

The school’s officials are not releasing any comments nor are they speaking to Salnikova. “So far nobody from the school’s administration has spoken to me. All their telephones are turned off,” she lamented. According to her, what happened with her son was not the first tragedy of its kind– last November another cadet was found dead. “We were told it was a suicide but I am sure that that boy and my son wanted to live,” she said.

Salnikova insisted on the second expertise to be held by military prosecutors. According to some reports, the body of the cadet was not found hanged in his room, but off the school’s campus.

Suvorov Military School is a type of Russian institution for boys age 14-17, with the curriculum consisting of military subjects. This type of academy was created in the USSR to provide male teenagers with secondary education specializing in military affairs.