Date

21/06/1997  

First

Inessa  

Surname

Donchenko  

Sex/Age

F, 22  

Incident

accident  

Motive

nJ  

Place

street  

Job

media worker, broadcaster  

Medium

TV  

Federal District Plus

Moscow  

Street, Town, Region

Sokolniki district, Moscow  

Freelance

no  

Local/National

national, 2 x 2  

Other Ties

 

Cause of Death

car, hit and run  

Legal Qualification

350.2 (violation of rules for driving cars)  

Impunity

trial, conviction, 1 November 1997  

On 20 June 1997 at 7.30 pm Inessa Donchenko, a journalist with the 2 x 2 TV channel, was knocked down by a car on Rostokinsky proezd in the Sokolniki district of Moscow. She was taken to hospital where she died of numerous fractures and a skull injury at 7 am on 21 June.

The driver of the car, a corporal with the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, had been drinking. Donchenko’s colleagues and classmates kept up the pressure to identify the offending driver and carried out their own investigation. On 22 November 1997 Corporal Pronyakin was sentenced by the Moscow garrison military court to 3 years imprisonment under Article 350.2 of the Criminal Code.

Donchenko wrote and presented the TV channel’s “Fashion, fashion” programme on Channel 3 for two years and had just graduated from the Moscow University faculty of journalism.