News

In April 2017, the fourth department of the Investigative Committee’s Head Office (based in the city of Yekaterinburg) finished investigation in a traffic accident that happened in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area-Yugra and involved a bus transporting children. Director of the Sibiryak Sports School Irina Tarasova, the bus driver Marat Zainullin, representative of an entrepreneur, who provided transportation, Alexander Sidoruk and truck driver Rail Saitkhanov went on trial.

Though the guilty ones were exposed and the case is being tried in the court at the moment, the Investigative committee keeps looking into the accident, checking, studying and assessing the actions (omission) of all officials responsible for transportation of the children, supervising education, sport and transportation in the region, and actions of police officers responsible for providing safety of young athletes. If there are enough reasons, all those involved in the death of children will be held accountable for the crime, while a court will look at the evidence produced by the investigators.

Following an order given by Alexander Bastrykin, a corresponding department of the Central office has already started checking the actions of the investigators who dealt with the case. They are going to check how thoroughly they had looked into all the circumstances surrounding the accident, including the role of officials.

Unfortunately, this is not the only conspicuous case in the region that has been criticized. Mass media keep discussing a traffic accident involving a traffic police officer and a 15-year-old riding a motorbike.

This incident crew public attention and of course did not go unnoticed by the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, who went to the region to inspect the inquest in person. As said before, Mr. Bastrykin ordered a specialized department of the Central office to check if the criticism of the investigation has any grounds and if the senior officials and employees of the regional investigative authority were guilty in any violations during the investigation or its procedural control.

Superficial attitude to investigation of cases involving death of children is intolerable: such cases require understanding that each action of an investigator should represent execution of tasks of criminal law – protection of rights and freedoms and most importantly – prevention of crimes.

The Investigative Committee is going to continue investigating cases over death of children with special attention and care, pursuing two goals – building a thorough body of evidence so that the guilty ones are punished for their crimes and preventing crimes in future.

Spokesperson for the Investigative Committee                                                                                              S. Petrenko