A Lexus driver who struck a woman on a sidewalk in Taraz may escape punishment under an amnesty. The victim suffered severe injuries and can barely move, infohub.kz reports.
The horrific crash that split a manicurist's life into "before" and "after" happened in mid-summer. Forty-year-old Ulyana Lagashkina was walking to work when a Lexus hit her. The impact knocked her unconscious; she spent more than a week in intensive care and then another two months in a regular ward. Now Ulyana can hardly move and cries constantly. She was the sole breadwinner in a family where her husband is also disabled and the children are still in school.
The woman claims the driver behind the wheel that fateful day had no license at all. She was driving her husband's car and simply confused the gas pedal with the brake.
"She said... What did she say? She just apologized, that's all. I told her: 'Just get me back on my feet. That's all I want. Once I'm on my feet, I'll forget everything that same day,'" the woman says.
At first, the driver did help. She bought the victim a special bed and even paid for several procedures. But then, Ulyana's relatives say, the woman disappeared. And the family's lawyer was told about an amnesty.
"We still suspect they wanted to hush up the case or simply apply an amnesty to this driver and leave it at that. An amnesty cannot be applied because the category doesn't fit. Because the harm to health was grievous. But I wouldn't be surprised by anything," says lawyer Lola Vrublevskaya.
According to the lawyer, the case was handled strangely from the start. Ulyana was not recognized as a victim. Her first testimony was taken only four months later. And investigators, she says, didn't even seize video from the crash site.
Police neither confirm nor deny this.
"A pre-trial investigation has been launched into this fact under Part 2 of Article 345 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The car has been placed in a specialized impound lot. The necessary investigative actions are currently underway," emphasizes Gulsara Mukhtarkulova, head of the press service of the Zhambyl Region Police Department.