A teen who prosecutors say was gang-raped, strangled and then set on fire has died, a hospital official said on Thursday. Oksana Makar's case sparked public protests in Ukraine.

Hundreds of people took to the streets earlier this month after police released two of 18-year-old Makar's three suspected attackers. Their parents reportedly had political connections and the move re-ignited a public debate on corruption in the ex-Soviet republic.

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Makar's plight gained further attention when her mother, Tetyana Surovitska, encouraged her to describe the ordeal in a video clip uploaded to YouTube.

In the video Makar calls for her attackers to be castrated and imprisoned, according to local English language newspaper Kyiv Post. It named the suspects as Yevhen Krasnoschek, 23; Maksym Prisyazhnyuk, 24; and Artem Pogosyan, 22.

The three were arrested, but two -- whose parents had political connections -- were released without charge. They were re-arrested after the intervention of President Viktor Yanukovich who sent an investigating team to the town of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.

'Her heart activity stopped'
Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko confirmed earlier this month that the parents of at least one of the three suspects were former government officials in the Mykolaiv region.

"Lung bleeding began and then her heart activity stopped," said Emil Fistal, head of the specialist burns unit whre Makar was taken for treatment. "We tried three times to revive her with defribillation."

According to local media reports, Makar met two of the three accused in a bar on March 10. After spending some time there with them, she went to the apartment of the third.

The reports say she was then raped and one of the suspected attackers tried to strangle her with a cord. They subsequently wrapped her in a blanket, took her to a pit on a building site and tried to set her body on fire before escaping.

She was found by a passing motorist and taken to hospital with serious burns. She had both feet and an arm amputated in surgery, according to the reports.

The Kyiv Post also published what it said was leaked video of one of the three suspects’ interrogation.

In that clip, the suspect, apparently Krasnoschek, said he was only trying to burn a pillowcase they had accidentally taken with them.

After disposing of Makar, the three suspects went to the supermarket to buy more vodka and, after that, stopped at a street kiosk for tea.

The BBC reported there have been several protests in Mykolaiv and elsewhere in Ukraine, including Odessa and Kharkiv, about the case and its handling by authorities.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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