The Yangiyul district criminal court sentenced two students who attacked a 56-year-old taxi driver near Tashkent in late April, the Milliy TV reported.
According to the case, on April 27 at about 11:30 p.m., D. M. and Z. M., aged 18 and 20, armed with a kitchen knife, arrived at the Almazar metro station in the capital and called a taxi through the Yandex Go app, indicating a destination in a field in the Chamanzor neighbourhood of the Yangiyul district of the Tashkent province.
Upon arrival at the scene, D. M., who was sitting in the back seat, stabbed the driver, C. A., in the neck. The driver tried to get out of the car. D. M. began to strangle him, and Z. M. held the man by the arms.
The victim said that he drove them to the location 200 meters deep into the field. The students told him that a friend had called them to pick strawberries and that he should come. Then he was attacked. According to him, after the wound, D. M. ordered Z. M. to hit the driver with a stone, but he did not do it, but only held the man's hands.
"I believe that the defendants did not intend to kill me. Because they had both the time to do so. But they did not seek to do so," the driver said.
About 15-20 minutes after the attack began, passing police officers noticed the car in the field and drove up to it. They arrested the young men.
One of the defendants partially pleaded guilty, stating that he committed the crime because of large debts.
The court found D. M. and Z. M. guilty of committing crimes under Attempted theft of a vehicle by armed robbery). D. M. was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment, given that he was under 18 at the time of the crime, and Z. M. was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment.
Reportedly, D. M. was a student at Academic Lyceum No. 1 at the Tashkent State University of Economics, and Z. M. was a student at the Tashkent University of Information Technologies. Both are natives of the Besharik district of the Fergana province.
