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Court rules Moscow cleric guilty of road accident but no punishment ensues

Hegumen Timothy was attainted of the driving license for a refusal to take a medical checkup at the site of a road accident
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, October 25 (Itar-Tass) — Hegumen Timothy, the farther superior of a famous downtown Moscow church, is guilty of breaking the traffic code but his encroachment on the regulations does not entail an administrative punishment, the press service of Moscow City’s Interior Department said Thursday.

“He has been recognized guilty of causing a road accident, as he violated Clause 10.1 of the traffic code, which specifies that cars cannot move at speeds bigger than the authorized ones, considering the intensity of movement, the road congestion factor, the weather conditions and the technical status of the car,” a spokesman for the press service said.

This encroachment does not envision an administrative penalty and that is why the administrative court action against the hegumen has been closed, he said.

Earlier in the day, the Zamoskvoretsky district court reaffirmed legitimacy of a ruling by a justice of peace to strip Hegumen Timothy of the driving license for a refusal to take a medical checkup at the site of a road accident. In September, Justice Olga Lepentsova passed a ruling that recognized the cleric, hegumen Timothy who is Father Superior of a well-known downtown church, guilty of a failure to take a checkup for alcoholic intoxication in connection with a road accident. Her ruling to block his driving license is valid for twenty months.

Hegumen Timothy is charged with an offense under Article 12.26 of the Code of Administrative Violations citing a driver’s failure to take a medical checkup for alcoholic intoxication. This violation entails a punishment in the form of a confiscation of the driving license for 18 to 24 months.

However, the cleric said in the courtroom he did not refuse to take the checkup, since policemen did not ask him to take it.

As reported earlier, Hegumen Timothy collided with two cars on the Garden Ring while driving a BMW sports car with diplomatic number plates. At the moment of collision, one of the cars was moving in the oncoming lane.

The cleric told the judges later he did not recognize any guilt on his part and he was absolutely sober at the time of the accident. He claimed that a Volkswagen Touareg had cut in into his lane in front his car and he had to use emergency braking on a wet road.

The Russian Orthodox Church passed a decision to bar the hegumen from service until the end of investigation.