Murder of a 9-year-old girl from Pavlograd in Germany: the child's father shares his thoughts on the verdict for the perpetrator.

A court in Germany has sentenced the killer of nine-year-old Valeria from Pavlograd in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to life imprisonment. The 37-year-old man, a citizen of Moldova, received this sentence due to the particularly severe nature of the crime, making early release after 15 years effectively impossible. This is reported by "Vидомо" referencing "Суспільне" and "Радио Свобода".

It is known that the convicted man had been in a relationship with the victim's mother for about three months. The documents state that the murderer is 37-year-old Moldovan citizen Andrei P. He was arrested in Prague on June 14 after being placed on a national and European wanted list. The court documents indicate that he worked in construction or performed electrical installation work in the Czech Republic and was there without a residence permit.

According to the court materials reviewed by Radio Svoboda journalists, the circumstances of the crime were extremely brutal. On the morning of June 3, the man encountered the girl as she was leaving the apartment where she lived with her mother and sister. Valeria was heading to the bus to go to school, but she never arrived for her classes. Investigators found that Andrei P. offered the girl a ride in his car, which he had received from his employer. Valeria agreed to the offer because she knew him, as stated in the documents. They traveled approximately four kilometers from the refugee family's residence to a forest area. The route taken by the man and the girl was established by law enforcement using surveillance cameras.

The perpetrator submerged the girl's head in a pit of mud until she suffocated and died.

According to law enforcement, the man committed this act due to having broken up with the victim's mother and being jealous of her relationships with others.

The father of the deceased girl, Roman Hudzhenko, mentioned that he initially suspected his ex-wife of the crime.

"Her behavior spoke for itself. She didn't want to take any additional steps to find Valeria. She didn't come to the funeral, nor did she come to choose the clothes in which our daughter would be buried. I suspected her until the very end," he said.

However, when he received the indictment, he was shocked by the police's work, Roman recounted.

"They did everything so meticulously that not even a mosquito could slip through. They even dismantled the car that he (the convict – ed.) used to take Valeria to the forest down to the last screw. And so on, and so forth. Andrei (the convict – ed.) played the role of a lawyer in court and defended himself.

The accused did not admit his guilt during the hearing, the man reported. According to him, the defendant claimed that his wife had set him up.

"I understand that this is the maximum that can be squeezed out of this situation. But he won't bring Valeria back to me. There is no motive that could justify killing a child. And there is no punishment that could satisfy me. I believe he has been punished too leniently," Roman stated.

The man added that he had also moved to Germany with his younger child, who was then 1.5 years old. Now, he said, he is fighting to bring him back to Ukraine.