Translated material
Accusation with "Focus"
The prosecutor's office found the culprit in the death of Governor Shershunov
The Directorate of the Investigative Committee at the Moscow Region Prosecutor's Office yesterday announced the filing of formal charges against a participant in an accident in which the Governor of the Kostroma Region, Viktor Shershunov, and his driver died . Yaroslavl resident Andrei Nikiforov, who was driving a Ford Focus and collided with the governor’s Mercedes, was charged with “violation of traffic rules that negligently resulted in the death of two or more persons.”The accident occurred on the night of September 20 in the Sergiev Posad district of the Moscow region. The head of the Kostroma region, Viktor Shershunov, was traveling to Moscow for a working meeting. On the 76th kilometer of the Yaroslavl highway at about 0.30 Andrei Nikiforov’s Ford Focus collided with the governor’s Mercedes. The official's car received serious damage from the impact and flew off the road. Mr. Shershunov and his driver died on the spot. The Focus driver was taken to the Sergiev Posad hospital with serious injuries.
As it turned out, in fact, Mr. Nikiforov was charged back on October 1. No one commented on how this procedure took place. It is only known that almost immediately the accused was transported from the Sergiev Posad hospital to Yaroslavl, where he was again placed in the intensive care unit of the hospital named after. Solovyova. Doctors still assess his condition as serious but stable.
“During the preliminary investigation, it was established that at approximately 23:00 on September 19, 2007, the driver of the Ford Focus, Andrei Nikiforov, left Moscow for Yaroslavl,” the Moscow Region prosecutor’s office said. -- At about 0.20 on September 20, 2007, moving in this direction exceeding the speed limit, he drove onto a road intended for oncoming traffic, where he collided with a Mercedes car.
Mr. Nikiforov himself, while in the hospital, does not comment on the actions of the investigation. On behalf of himself and his relatives, only the head of the Union of Motorists of the Yaroslavl Region, Sergei Terekhin, who is organizing Nikiforov’s defense, communicates with journalists. According to him, in this accident everything is not as clear as the prosecutor’s office sets out. The main question is the direction in which the Ford was traveling. According to Nikiforov’s relatives, he was traveling to Moscow, and not from the capital, as the prosecutor’s office believes. This is allegedly confirmed by data from the traffic police post at 80 km of the Yaroslavl highway, where the security camera first recorded Nikiforov’s Ford, and a little later - the governor’s Mercedes moving in the same direction. And if this is so, then the official version does not stand up to criticism - it turns out that, perhaps, instead of a head-on collision, there was an unsuccessful overtaking at high speed, as a result of which one of the cars spun, and the second impact was already head-on. “The damage sustained by the vehicles does not fit into the official version,” Mr. Terekhin said. “It is doubtful that a heavy Mercedes could receive such damage from a light Ford.” It cannot be ruled out that a third vehicle, such as a truck, was involved in the accident and subsequently fled the scene of the accident. But all these versions and guesses are based on data obtained from unofficial sources and the Internet. You can talk about something in detail only after the lawyers get acquainted with the case. But for now they are not allowed to see the materials or evidence. They didn’t even see the accident diagram.”