Moscow court sentences suspect to nine years in prison for murdering gay man coming home from nightclub

On June 9, the Basmanny District Court sentenced Anton Berezhnoi to nine years in a maximum security prison for murdering a gay man at a Moscow train station in 2019, reports Agentstvo Moskva. Earlier, the jury found Berezhnoi “guilty and deserving of leniency.”

Anton Berezhnoi was accused of stabbing two men, Roman Yedalov and Evgeny Yefimov, at the Kursky railway station in June 2019. They were returning home from a gay nightclub at the time of the attack. Evgeny Yefimov received minor injuries, while Roman Yedalov died at the scene. Yefimov told the television station Dozhd that Berezhnoi also shouted insults about the victims’ sexual orientation.

During a hearing on June 1, Berezhnoi left the courtroom during a recess and did not return. He was put on a wanted list, detained shortly thereafter, and sent to a pre-trial detention center.

• In February 2020, a jury acquitted Anton Berezhnoi of murder charges, but convicted him of felony battery. Berezhnoi had pleaded partially guilty, saying that the victim killed during the attack impaled himself on the knife. The Moscow City Court sent the case for a retrial after state prosecutors and the victim appealed the jury’s verdict.