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Retrial in Tyva Student Killing

A retrial started on Wednesday in a Tyva district court for a traffic officer who got off with a lax 15-month sentence for shooting a high school student to death, Interfax reported.

Borbak-ool Bair was convicted in February, but the Tyva Supreme Court overturned the decision amid criticism of the light sentence. It also refused Bair's plea to hold a special trial with no testimony from witnesses and examination of the evidence.

The 17-year-old teenager was shot in October after being pulled over by Bair for a document check. A female passenger was wounded.

The investigators said Bair disengaged the safety of his gun, which accidentally fired when he tried to grab the driver through the car's window.

Bair said earlier that he fired because the student had something that looked like a gun, but later he admitted planting a toy gun on the dead driver to justify the shooting.

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