Hayk Arsenovich Gasparyan, a prisoner who became a Wagner PMC mercenary, who was awarded on December 31 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sentenced to 7 years and 3 months for armed robbery. Gasparyan was recruited for the war in Ukraine from a strict regime colony. Information about this is contained in the decision of the Second Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction dated January 18, 2022.
By a court verdict, Gasparyan was found guilty of committing robbery as part of a group of persons with the aim of robbery with the use of weapons and violence dangerous to life and health.
He received the medal "For Courage" for participation in the war in Ukraine from Putin's hands with the words "I serve Russia and PMC Wagner."
On January 5, it became known that the first group of prisoners who fought in Ukraine as part of the Wagner PMC were pardoned after their six-month contract ended. This was stated by the founder of PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin. We are talking about a group of former prisoners of about 20 people.
One of the prisoners to whom Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of PMC Wagner, promised freedom after participating in the war on the territory of Ukraine, was Dmitry Karyagin, who in 2014 killed his own grandmother, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. At the time of the murder, the woman was 87 years old.
According to the case file cited by the Agency, Karyagin persuaded his grandmother to sell the apartment for 820,000 rubles, then took her to the garage, where he hit her on the head with a hammer.
Among other prisoners who, according to Prigozhin, should receive a pardon after participating in the war are Daniil Saveliev, twice convicted for robbery, Viktor Varnakov, twice convicted of fraud, Yevgeny Rubezhsky, convicted in Ukraine for theft, Vladimir Ryashentsev, who was sentenced in 2015 to 2.5 years in prison for the theft of four bicycles, as well as Alexander Kobchenko, who was convicted for theft.