Translated material
Investigation errors
In the case of the collapse of Trasvaal Park, the court did not find specific charges
The Cheryomushkinsky Court of Moscow yesterday returned the case of the collapse of the Transvaal Park dome in Yasenevo to the city prosecutor’s office “to eliminate significant shortcomings.” Thus, the court agreed with the arguments of the defense of both defendants - chief designer Nodar Kancheli and head of Mosgosexpertiza Anatoly Voronin - that there are indeed shortcomings in the case. The Moscow prosecutor's office itself does not agree with the court's decision and plans to appeal it.Lawyers for Kancheli and Voronin on February 3, at the first preliminary hearing, demanded that the case be returned to the prosecutor’s office to eliminate violations. In particular, they stated that investigators did not specify the charges against their clients. In addition, according to the lawyers, after the case was transferred to the court, it was discovered that some pages of the criminal case were unnumbered. The presiding officer, Natalya Zhuravleva, completely agreed with the defense’s arguments.
The representative of the victims, Igor Trunov, immediately stated: “I believe that the prosecutor’s office deliberately committed violations to delay the process. It is simply difficult for them to single out only two officials among all the true culprits of the tragedy. True, the longer the process drags on, the more people’s hopes for justice fade. This is also evidenced by the fact that only 20 victims came to the last hearing.”
The tragedy in Transvaal Park occurred on the evening of February 14, 2004. The collapsed roof killed 28 people, including 8 children, and injured 193 people, including 51 children, of varying severity. The investigation lasted 20 months. During this time, dozens of inspections of various objects were carried out, 240 various forensic examinations were carried out, including a complex construction and technical examination that was unique in its scope and specificity, and more than 3 thousand people were interrogated. As a result, the investigation came to the conclusion that “the cause of the partial collapse of the water park was a complex of design errors caused by gross miscalculations during the development of the project, as a result of which the constructed structure did not meet regulatory requirements for safety and reliability.”
As a result, the chief designer Nodar Kancheli was charged with “causing death by negligence due to improper performance by a person of his professional duties,” and Mr. Voronin, who, according to the investigation, approved the project, was charged with “negligence resulting by negligence in the death of two and more persons." They themselves do not admit guilt.
“The court most likely would not return the case to the prosecutor’s office to eliminate violations just because of unnumbered pages,” lawyer Yuri Kostanov, who represents Mr. Kancheli’s interests, told Vremya Novostei. - It was possible to number the pages in court. And the case is returned to the prosecutor’s office when it cannot be considered properly without correcting the violations. This is a very long, thick resolution, I’m working on it now. I study every point. However, the main thing that did not satisfy the court was that the prosecution’s position was not formulated specifically enough by the prosecutor’s office. In particular, we are talking about the fact that the indictment does not accurately indicate what specific actions are charged with both defendants. If we are talking about the fact that they didn’t do something there and didn’t follow the precautionary rules, it was necessary to name specifically what precautionary rules they didn’t follow. Well, if the prosecutor’s office says that something was done wrong, then it was necessary to indicate what exactly and why it was wrong and what should have been done to make it so. The court did not see this in the indictment. As for Voronin, the court quite rightly noted that he is accused of failing to fulfill his official duties in monitoring the projects submitted for examination. And since job responsibilities are always clearly stated, it means that there must be some paragraph, a point of some rules that the investigation refers to, the court again did not see this. There are many other violations, but these are the main ones.”
In turn, the Moscow prosecutor's office commented on the current situation cautiously. “It’s too early to say anything, since it’s not clear that he wants us to go to trial. As soon as the prosecutor's office receives a decision to return the case to correct errors, it will immediately be clear in which direction to file a cassation protest. As for the alleged lack of numbering of some pages in the criminal case, this is excluded. After all, according to Art. 217-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation (familiarization of the accused and his defense attorney with the materials of the criminal case), no lawyer will read the case if it is not numbered and bound. Defenders approach this very painfully. And we never have such situations,” explained the prosecutor’s office.