Three-time Russian champion, European champion in universal karate and world champion in grappling Oleg Sorokanyuk committed suicide in Chita, Taiga.Info reports . He was a witness in two cases of beating children in the camp. The first was initiated under the article on torture, the second – under the article on negligence.
Sorokanyuk worked as a coach, in the summer of 2022 he brought his students to the training camp at the Zhemchuzhina-Chita camp. Further, according to the investigation, he invited his 24-year-old acquaintance “to fulfill the duties of a children’s camp teacher, who in July 2022 systematically beat four underage residents of the Zhemchuzhina camp with his hands and a skipping rope.”
As Mash reported , the father of one of the children noticed bruises on the child's arms and found out that the students were doing push-ups on their fists for wrongdoing. The man arrived at the camp with an interrogator. The testimonies of the parents of other students in defense of the coach did not help. According to the athlete's wife, he made such a decision after a call from the investigator. “One call changed everything. He was tired of fighting,” wrote Daria Sorokanyuk. The athlete himself told his wife that they were fabricating a case against him.
Chita film director Elena Khzanyan accused the investigating authorities of driving the coach to suicide. Oleg's father expressed the same opinion. At the same time, law enforcement agencies now insist that nothing threatened Sorokanyuk, since he was a witness on business, and they were allegedly not going to change this status. In addition, they threatened to prosecute those who spread criticism of the investigating authorities.
“Sorokanyuk was not involved in a criminal case related to the relationship between coaches and pupils in a children's camp, neither as a suspect, nor even as an accused,” a source in law enforcement told reporters. – He was a witness and knew that no one was going to change this status. Claims there were to the director of the camp and to the coach who worked with Sorokanyuk, and not to him. Therefore, mass claims against the investigating authorities, voiced, including and primarily on the Internet, have no basis, and the law enforcement agencies themselves may have questions about the spread of these aggressive attacks on the ICR and other structures.”
After the incident, Chita residents expressed their readiness to go to the rally. The Investigative Committee did not respond to requests from journalists.