A RUSSIAN hero is facing being banged up for 15 years for rescuing two teenage boys from a convicted paedophile who had trapped them naked in his flat.
Vladimir Sankin, 33, is getting a wave of public support for accidentally killing the evil sex attacker during the rescue and there are demands to drop the murder charge he now faces.
The local car mechanic answered the desperate pleas of a frantic teenager to help his friend who had been locked inside the flat of 54-year-old known paedophile Vladimir Zaitsev.
Sankin, from Ufa city, ran straight to the flat where he heard the 14-year-old boy crying and screaming inside as the monster was going in for the kill.
The hero forced his way in and freed the unnamed boy who had been told by the man to strip naked under the threat of killing and dismembering him with an axe, he told police.
After saving the boy, Sankin took Zaitsev outside and beat him up with a wooden stick as he waited for police to show up.
Zaitsev, who was recently released from jail after another conviction for sex attacks on children, died as a result of the beating.
Sankin was formally detained and accused of “intentional infliction of grave bodily harm resulting in the death of the victim by negligence”.
The paedophile met the boys in the entrance to his flat where they were trying to warm after playing for several hours in the snow.
He lured them into his apartment to “dry their wet clothes”.
Once inside he told them to undress and allegedly began to “harass” them until one of the boys escaped and found Sankin.
Vladimir Sankin feels he used reasonable force when detaining the convicted paedophile after saving the boys. He said: “I didn’t expect him to die at all.
“I saved two children… from him.”
Sankin is seen by tens of thousands who have signed a petition demanding Sankin’s release as a “hero”.
The petition claims Zaitsev died after hitting his head when he fell during the fight with Sankin.
Sankin’s friend Roman said: “He is a good guy.
“He has paid for his kindness with his liberty.”
His wife Polina Naumova said: “I’m entirely on his side for not walking out [on the boys] because no-one knows what would have happened next if he turned a blind eye.”
A video shows the moment he was released from the dock and into the arms of his wife as his supporters cheered, but he remains under house arrest and the murder investigation is still being pursued.
His lawyer said: “We hope the court will assess this because there mitigating circumstances; the immoral behaviour of the ‘victim’, which was the reason for committing the crime.”
Comments on the petition have praised his bravery. One woman said: “He saved children. Now let’s save him.
“It’s great to know there are still real men.”
However others have called it a “Lynching” and said that he should be prosecuted for the killing.
