A court has recognized the evidence collected by the Sverdlovsk Region Office of the Investigative Committee sufficient to convict a 31-year-old driver of an excavator-loader of one of commercial enterprises. He was found guilty of a crime under Part 1 of Article 109 of the RF Penal Code (reckless homicide).

The court and investigators have revealed that on the afternoon of 4 February 2016, the accused was driving a technically sound excavator-loader and was clearing snow near one of the buildings in Roshchinskaya Street in the city of Yekaterinburg. When the man started transporting a heap of snow to the bank of Nizhne-Isetsky pond, he got out of the cabin, looked around the area to make sure that there was no-one around, dumped the heap from the front dipper next to a slide and left for another heap of snow. When he came back, he decided that nobody could have appeared in the area while he had been away so he dumped the new heap over the last one. However, there was a 10-year-old girl behind the heap and she got buried under the snow. Some passers-by pulled the girl from the heap and took her to hospital, but, unfortunately, doctors could not save her life. She died at hospital on 13 February 2016.

The investigators did a lot to find out all the details of the crime. The accused, girl’s parents, eye witnesses, the staff of the company that had employed the accused and representatives of building manager companies were questioned. The investigators confiscated and studied documents concerning snow clearing operations near the said building. A forensic medical examination of the body was carried out to determine the exact cause of death. The investigators, also found out all the circumstances that had contributed to the incident, so request were sent to a number of officials. Namely, the juvenile office of the local police department received a request to warn children at schools that they mustn’t play in the areas where any kinds of operations are underway or specialized equipment is operating. In addition, requests were also sent to two building managing companies, the district administration and the deputy chairman of the Sverdlovsk Region Government.

The court has sentenced the accused to 1 year of constraint.

It should be noted that the Investigative Committee has severed the files of the check against the staff of the building manager company to form a separate lawsuit. Following the check, the investigators are going to qualify the actions of the company’s staff if they contain signs of a crime under Article 216 of the RF Penal Code (breach of safety during construction and other operations that inflicted death of a person by negligence) bearing a punishment of up to 5 years in prison.