A MECHANIC says he has “no regrets” after he was jailed for eight years for killing a paedophile while the beast was attacking two children.
A jury had found Vladimir Sankin, 34, guilty of causing grievous bodily harm leading to Vladimir Zaitsev’s death, after the sex pest died following blows by the “hero” when he made a citizen’s arrest.
Sankin has been handed a jail sentence for eight years, which he would spend in a strict Russian penal colony.
Videos from local news outlet Life Shot showed Sankin hugging his weeping wife and mother in court before he was handcuffed and taken away to begin his sentence.
Earlier, Sankin had said he had been handed a choice – to pass by or to save the children.
“Surely every man would do the same in my place,” he said.
Two boys, aged ten and 14, had been lured to paedophile Vladimir Zaitsev’s flat in Ufa city.
Zaitsev had served sentences of five years, one year and 11 years for previous child sex convictions for “sodomy” and “violent sexual acts”.
The sex attacker, 54, plied them with alcohol and the teenager was told by the man to strip naked or face being killed and dismembered if he refused, say reports of the case.
He committed “lewd acts” against them.
One of the boys escaped and told Sankin about the attack and he rushed to the scene.
The younger boy escaped and alerted passerby Sankin who ran to the scene, according to the defendant.
The judge in Ufa said that Sankin held Zaitsev and inflicted multiple blows on the man’s vital organs with his hands, feet and a wooden stick before police arrived and halted the attacks.
But the court was also told by experts that the paedophile died in an ambulance from hypothermia and not the blows from the mechanic.
He was found to have used disproportionate force in holding Zaitsev.
A court statement said: “Sankin was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in a strict regime colony under the article on deliberate infliction of grievous bodily harm which resulted in the death of the victim.”
Earlier a murder change had been reclassified to a lesser charge, and Sankin was found not guilty of a robbery accusation.
Asked as he was taken into custody if he regretted intervening to help the child victims, he replied: “No, I do not.”
Sankin’s case became a cause célèbre with a petition of 70,000 calling for the charges to be dropped against the “hero”, and a benefactor paying for his legal defence.
His lawyer Shota Gorgadze will formally lodge an appeal.
“Vladimir acted like a real man,” he said.
“He ran to the entrance and met a paedophile, snatching from his clutches the second child.
“A fight broke out, as a result of which the paedophile subsequently died.
“And it was Sankin in the dock.”
The lawyer called his client “a simple guy who could not pass by a paedophile and protected children from this rapist.
“The earth depends on such ordinary men.”
Sankin’s wife Polina Naumova said: “No-one knows what would have happened next if he turned a blind eye.”
His mother Galina insisted: “He defended the children.
“The forensic analysis said Zaitsev died as a result of frostbite, not my son killing him.
“My son is not to blame.”
There have been calls for Sankin to be awarded for bravery.