A court in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region has sentenced the 39-year-old Veronika Naumova to 24 years in a general-regime penal colony for the torture and murder of the six-year-old Daler Bobiyev, the son of a migrant from Tajikistan. The chilling case, which sparked national outrage, concluded in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg.
Naumova, a mother of multiple children, was convicted of killing the boy with exceptional cruelty, motivated by ethnic hatred, and of multiple related crimes, including unlawful imprisonment, causing grievous bodily harm, involving a minor in criminal activity, and fraudulently claiming state benefits.
According to TASS, her nephew Daniil Egolnikov was sentenced to five years for his role in torturing the child. Naumova's husband had already been sentenced in September of last year to five years for similar abuse charges.
Prosecutors revealed harrowing details of the case: Naumova reportedly beat the child with a metal shoehorn, then submerged him in a cold bath until he drowned. She later hid his body in a garage, allegedly to continue collecting welfare payments linked to his care.
Naumova has denied responsibility for the child’s death, claiming Daler died while being bathed by her sister and insisting she was not in the bathroom at the time. She maintained that the cause of death remains undetermined.
In a further development, Daler’s biological father has filed a civil lawsuit against Naumova seeking 10 million rubles in moral damages, which she also refuses to acknowledge.
The case gained widespread attention in June 2023 when Naumova reported the boy missing, prompting a large-scale search by police and local residents in Yekaterinburg. The child’s body was eventually discovered concealed in a bag inside a garage. Forensic analysis later determined that he had died more than six months earlier.
