In the judicial debate on the criminal case of a fire in the Zimnyaya Cherry shopping center in Kemerovo, which killed 60 people, including 37 children, the prosecutor’s office requested 14 years in prison for the ex-head of the regional head office of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Major General Alexander Mamontov, and 10 years – for the former chief state inspector for fire supervision of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Kemerovo, Lieutenant Colonel Grigory Terentyev. The prosecution also insists on depriving the defendants of their officer ranks.
The trial of the ex-head of the Main Directorate (GU) of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for Kuzbass, Alexander Mamontov, and the former chief state inspector for fire supervision of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Kemerovo, Grigory Terentyev, has reached the finish line. They are defendants in the case of a fire in the Kemerovo shopping center “Winter Cherry” in 2018. Today, the prosecution spoke in the debate. As a representative of the prosecutor’s office stated at the meeting, during the trial it was established that the defendants were involved in the commission of the crime they were accused of.
Alexander Andryushchenko, head of the prosecution department of the Kemerovo Region Prosecutor’s Office, admitted in his speech that the defendants had such extenuating circumstances as the absence of a criminal record, positive references from the place of work, and the presence of minor children.
At the same time, the prosecutor believes, taking into account the public danger, former rescuers deserve punishment associated with isolation from society.
For the ex-head of the regional head office of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the state prosecutor demanded six years and four months in prison for negligence, which entailed great loss of life (part 3 of article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and nine and a half years for embezzlement on a particularly large scale (part 4 of art. 160). On the basis of the totality of crimes, by partial addition of punishments, the prosecutor asked Alexander Mamontov to be finally sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony of general regime and a fine of 900 thousand rubles; for Grigory Terentyev, who is accused of negligence (part 3 of article 293 of the Criminal Code) and fraud (part 3 of article 159 of the Criminal Code), the state prosecutor requested 10 years in prison and a fine of 120 thousand rubles.
The representative of the state prosecution indicated that the stay in custody would be credited to the defendants while serving their sentence at the rate of one day in a pre-trial detention center for a day and a half in a colony (rescuers have been in a pre-trial detention center for almost five years). In addition, the prosecutor suggested depriving Major General Mamontov and Lieutenant Colonel Terentyev of the internal service of their special ranks and forbidding them to hold senior positions in the civil service for three years after their release.
The prosecutor also suggested that the court satisfy the claims of the relatives of the victims against the accused. On Thursday, the debate of the parties will continue in the Central District Court.
Alexander Mamontov and Grigory Terentyev are accused of improper performance of their duties, in particular, that they conducted a poor-quality fire safety check of the Zimnyaya Cherry shopping center a year before the fire, which killed 60 people (37 of them were children).
In addition, the former head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for Kuzbass is accused of embezzlement in the form of illegal wages of 1.9 million rubles. three leaders of the public movement of veterans of fire protection and emergencies, and Grigory Terentyev – in receiving monetary allowances for falsified documents. Both rescuers deny the charges against them. “I don’t admit my guilt in full,” said the ex-head of the rescue department of Kuzbass at one of the court hearings.
