[bigslut]

A Ukrainian teenager has died three weeks after being set on fire in a gang rape attack by youths that shocked the nation and raised doubts about the competence of police.

Oksana Makar, 18, was raped by three men in their early 20s, strangled with a cord, burned and left for dead in an attack in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, investigators have said.

She was found by a passer-by after she was dumped by her attackers at an abandoned construction site. She was hospitalised in a critical condition with burns over 55 per cent of her body, requiring the amputation of one of her arms.

She died on Thursday of her injuries in a specialist hospital in the eastern city of Donetsk where she had been taken after her rescue, the clinic announced.

Her heart stopped beating after she suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage and she died despite three attempts to resuscitate her, the chief doctor of the Donetsk Burns centre, Emil Fistal, told AFP.

He said the fact she was able to survive for three weeks since the attack, which occurred on March 9 or 10 according to various sources, had only been possible due to intense treatment and therapy.

"Imagine. She was strangled and they (the attackers) thought she had died. So they burned her. She was lying there 10 hours in the freezing cold and inhaled the by-products of the burning," Fistal said.

President Viktor Yanukovych sent condolences to her relatives while Prime Minister Mykola Azarov vowed that the attackers would be punished "without compromise".

"Millions of Ukrainians believed that Oksana would survive and prayed for her, offering blood, buying medicine," Azarov said.

The case has caused a public outcry in Ukraine, exposing incompetence by the law-enforcement authorities and the extent of social problems in industrial cities such as Mykolayiv, which are riddled with drugs and AIDS.

Ukrainian media had alleged that the suspected attackers - two of whom were initially allowed to go free - are the sons of parents with strong connections to leading local officials.

The mother of one suspect used to be the head of a district in the Mykolayiv region, the regional interior ministry confirmed, prompting allegations the authorities had been trying to keep a lid on the whole affair.

Meanwhile, Makar's mother controversially posted a harrowing video of Oksana in hospital on YouTube where she raises up the bloodied stump of her arm and, apparently barely able to speak, says she feels "awful".

In another disturbing video that was leaked to Ukrainian media, one of the suspects is allegedly shown calmly relating to investigators how the three successively raped Oksana and then killed her when she started threatening to call police.

All three men have now been charged with premeditated rape and murder.

Authorities say several officials from the police and local prosecutors were fired and reprimanded for initially letting the suspects go free.

[conworldus]

Their asses will not leave the prison as virgins

[Cumulonimbus]

This breaks my heart. Some poor teenage girl doesn't get to live her life. Such depravity and cruelty these men showed her. I pray that they never leave prison at all, but given their obvious connections, I won't hold my breath that their final sentence will in any way fit the crime.

[TheJewishYeti]

Horrid. There is no rehabilitation for someone capable of such a despicable crime - the punishments those three men face would hardly seem worth the anguish that poor girl suffered.

[thissiteisfuckedup]

I just read about this in the newspaper the other day, then today read that she had died from her injuries.
This fucking angers me so much for two reasons, first being that our shitty fucking gay media didnt report this to australians once whilst there was a massive revolt going on protesting the corrupt police who let off two of the suspects cause they had parents who were well connected and rich.
The second being the obvious evil crime that was commited against this woman, i couldnt imagine the terror she experienced.

[Cumulonimbus]

I hadn't heard about this, either, until I read it here. Couldn't possibly be that our media (governments) would want us to get any ideas about protesting police and governmental corruption. Nah. They would never do that.

[Flaka]

Fucking sad. Justice system is so screwed. Seems like its all about protecting the criminals.

[ernyzaz]

disturbing, is there a death penality in ukraine?

[Cumulonimbus]

No. Ukraine abolished the death penalty in 2001.

[Dynamo47]

I sure as hell hope that country has a death penalty and uses it in the case of these animals.