Sept 1, 2012

The Estonian Prosecutor's Office has announced it will not launch a criminal trial over claims of shocking harassment in the military, when two ethnically Russian conscripts were allegedly made to dig their own graves.

The case went public on Thursday when several Estonian newspapers reported that the country's Defense Ministry was looking into a report of officers hazing the two young brothers.

On August 13 in the military field camp Myanniku, several officers made the Russian cadets to take a series of personal training exercises which ended with digging their own graves in the forest at night, Estonian Postimees newspaper reported.

“They said that if we go missing nobody will cry for us. That we will be sent home in body bags, and because we have firearms with us, it will look like defection,” one of the victims told the newspaper.

The names of the brothers have not been disclosed. The only thing which reported was that they are the sons of a wealthy Russian businessman.

Meanwhile, the accused officers deny any such intimidation tactics, saying the soldiers were just performing a regular night time exercise of digging trenches.

Estonia's Prosecutor`s Office seems to buy into that version, as on Friday it announced that the case contains no criminal elements and thus no trial will be initiated.

http://rt.com/news/estonia-military-harassment-grave-131/print/