Wealthy father who tortured and starved his three-year-old son to death and made his short life ‘pure hell’ is sentenced to death with a bullet to the head in Belarus

A wealthy father who tortured and starved his three-year-old son and made his short life “pure hell” will be executed by shooting him in the head in Belarus.

Alexander Taratuta, 48, has been sentenced to death for the brutal torture and murder of his son Semyon.

He will be shot in the back of the head in Belarus, the only country in Europe that applies capital punishment.

His wife Anastasia Taratuta, 37, was sentenced to 25 years in a strict regime penal colony for Semyon’s murder.

The death penalty, imposed by a state executioner, is not allowed for women in Belarus.

Both “calmly listened to their sentences” while handcuffed in a glass cage, Sputnik reported.

Alexander constantly looked away from the camera as a judge handed down the verdict, while Anastasia was seen covering her face with her hands in the dock as her husband was sentenced to death.

The couple is seen sitting in a courtroom during their sentencing.

Seymon was starved for a long period and weighed only 15 pounds at the age of three when he died. An image on his tombstone shows the boy with a wounded nose due to a wound inflicted by his parents.

Seymon finally died on January 4 this year after his father kicked him in the head “to make him sit on the ground.” The boy fell “without showing signs of life”

A court was told how the “rich” couple inflicted a life of “pure hell” on the boy.

Little Semyon was forced to sleep on bare linoleum and was often numb from the cold in his private home in Slutsk, 65 miles south of the capital, Minsk.

His mother, a Russian citizen, regularly hit Semyon in the face and threw him against her husband or against the wall. She also put him in the bathtub.

The three-year-old boy was tied to the leg of a table and, at other times, his hands were tied and food was dangled in front of his face.

Seymon was starved for a long period and weighed only 15 pounds at the age of three when he died.

An image on his tombstone shows the boy with an injured nose due to a wound inflicted by his parents.

“His parents, instead of looking out for him, simply insulted, humiliated and beat him,” says a court report.

Alejandro denied having been cruel and stated that he wanted to “educate” his son.

Mother Anastasia Taratuta, 37, is sentenced to 25 years in strict prison – the maximum allowed for a woman – for the torture and murder of her three-year-old son, Semyon.

Father Alexander Taratuta, 48, is sentenced to death in Belarus for the torture and murder of his three-year-old son, Semyon.

Semyon’s cot is seen in this image from inside the hell house.

Semyon was regularly dropped into the bathtub, forced to sleep on the floor, and tied to furniture while beaten.

As “punishment” for dirtying the floor, they put the terrified boy in the bathtub and threw objects at him.

Seymon finally died on January 4 this year after his father kicked him in the head “to make him sit on the ground.” The child fell “without showing signs of life.”

An autopsy found that Semyon had eight other serious injuries inflicted by his parents.

A paramedic doctor who confirmed Semyon’s death said: “The child was very thin, like a skeleton, covered with skin, he looked like an African child with a big belly.”

“He had an abrasion on his head and a lock of hair was missing.”

The boy’s eye socket was “torn almost to the temple.”

The couple had two more children together, both daughters, now aged four and one, and Anastasia had custody of the eldest of two children, aged 14 and 12, from a previous relationship.

They are now all under guardianship and formal legal proceedings are underway to deprive the couple of their parental rights.

Anastasia has two older children, but the horrific child abuse was reserved for Semyon.

Alexander constantly looked away from the camera as a judge handed down the verdict, while Anastasia was seen covering her face with her hands in the dock as her husband was sentenced to death.

Mother Anastasia Taratuta, 37, is sentenced to 25 years in strict prison

Evil parents Alexander and Anastasia Taratuta, aged 48 and 37, respectively face the death penalty and 25 years in prison for the murder of their three-year-old son Semyon.

Head of social services Galina Shaduro said the family was “rich.”

Both parents saw their eldest daughter as a “princess”, while they also adored the youngest.

After Semyon’s death, mother Anastasia went to a store and bought lollipops for her two other small children.

Belarus’ prosecutor general said the couple was motivated by “personal hostility” against the boy. They wanted to kill him, the prosecutor said.

‘Because of their personal hostility towards their obviously young son Semyon, in order to murder him, they beat him in the presence of his younger brother with hands and feet at least nine times, seven of which were on the head.

“The defendants were aware that by inflicting multiple blows on the child with significant force, including with boots, to the head, torso and extremities, they were causing their child prolonged physical pain, special torture and suffering.”

In his “last word” in court, Alexander, a Belarusian citizen who previously worked in a clothing factory, said he was sorry that his life “turned out like this.”

Alexander said he was “sorry that the last blow” to his son was “too strong.”

‘There were no intentions or conspiracies. “I didn’t want to kill, there were no such thoughts,” she said.

His wife was condemned in a court report as a “cheap actress who pretended to be a bereaved mother during the last court session.”

He had written a final speech to the court but refused to read it.

He can appeal his death row sentence and seek a pardon from Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

But such measures rarely change decisions about executions.

Those facing the death penalty are blindfolded and forced to kneel before being shot in the back of the head.

The method is similar to that used in Stalin’s time in the USSR.