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Tatarstan investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee continue investigating criminal cases opened against CEO of OAO Investment Construction Company and ZAO Facility Manager AS Management Robert Khayrullin, Chairman of Board of Directors of ZAO Facility Manager AS Management Aleksey Semin, CEO of OOO Zarya Guseyn Gakhramanov, Deputy Safety Director of Admiral shopping center Nikolai Kayekin, former executor of inter-district department of the regional Office of the Federal Bailiffs Service Minzilya Safina and III degree specialist of State Construction Surveillance inspectorate of the Republic of Tatarstan Galiya Isayeva. Depending on the role of each one, they are suspected of crimes under part 3 of article 219 of the RF Penal Code (violation of fire safety requirements entailing be negligence death of two or more people), part 2 of article 201 (abuse of office entailing grave consequences), part 1 of article 327 (forgery of an ID or any other official entitling document or such dispensing from duties for the purpose of using such a document or selling it), part 3 of article 238 (providing work or services not meeting life or health safety standards entailing death of two or more people by negligence) and part 3 of article 293 (negligence that inflicted death of 2 or more people).

According to preliminary information, for the purpose of getting profit from demising shopping capacities, in 2014, Khayrullin and Semin bought 4 properties in Klara Tsetkin street, which before having been reconstructed had housed production facilities of ZAO Serp i Molot. In 2008, Khayrullin issued a resolution to unite all 4 workshops in a single building to be used as a shopping center. The man did not provide any information on the reconstruction and therefore later filed false data on the property with Technical Inventory Bureau and Tatarstan Office of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography. In January 2009, Khayrullin received a technical passport and a cadaster passport of the property which then entitled him to register his ownership on the property as a shopping center. Besides, under the contract of lease of non-residential facility the owners demised it to OOO Zarya to be operated as the Admiral shopping center.

This way, since 2013, the property holding a large number of people has been operated illegally as a shopping center with gross violations of fire safety rules and without permission to have been reconstructed.

In 2013, Isayeva inspected the shopping center to check if OOO Zarya followed construction laws and fire safety rules and concluded that the building had no signs of reconstruction. She failed to take any measures to reveal changes in building’s parameters, its parts and quality of engineering and technical maintenance.

Safina in her turn put knowingly false information that the staff of OOO Zarya had eliminated all violations of fire safety revealed during a check by the prosecutor’s office, while in fact they had remained in place – the fact became known during the second check. Namely, the shopping center was not divided into compartments in accordance with a maximum allowed area. The building did not have fire exhaust ventilation to remove the smoke in case of a fire. There was no pumping station for automated fire-control units and for raising pressure in internal fire water supply system. Power lines had no protecting cutout devices that prevent fires in case of faulty collectors. As a result the prosecutor’s office made a protest and resumed the enforcement proceeding against OOO Zarya. However, Gakhramanov and Kayekin did not take any measures to eliminate the said violations.

As a result of the actions of all abovementioned individuals in the afternoon of 11 March 2015, a fire 18.2 thousand square meters in area started at the Admiral shopping center in Klara Tsetkin street in the city of Kazan. According to the latest data 23 people were injured and 17 were killed in the fire: 13 of them were found under the debris and 4 died at hospital.

At present Khayrullin and Isayeva are in detention, restraint is being discussed. Gakhramanov and Kayekin are under arrest. Safina is wanted. The investigations are ongoing.