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Culprit of death of 7 people in major road accident in Moscow convicted

The Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced to 8.5 years in a general security penitentiary Alexander Maximov
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, May 22 (Itar-Tass) - The Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced to 8.5 years in a general security penitentiary Alexander Maximov, who was found guilty of a major road accident in the Minskaya Street in the state of drunkenness, that killed seven people, Itar-Tass reported from the courtroom on Wednesday.

The court found that the condition of drunkenness of Maximov in the road accident is proved. According to the verdict, the defendant was drinking alcohol with his friend before he has got behind the wheel and fell asleep in the process of driving.

“The testimony of the witness is taken by the court as fair and logical,” the verdict runs.

The court sentenced Maximov to a term in prison that is six months shorter than the maximum sentence, because the Criminal Code envisages up to nine years in prison for a road accident in the state of drunkenness and the death of more than two people in the road accident.

Meanwhile, the court reduced considerably the financial claims stated against Maximov, levying only one million roubles of compensation for the moral damage to three injured parties, but refusing to satisfy the lawsuit of the orphanage for the payment of 50 million roubles.

Before the court session and when the verdict was read out Maximov was hiding his face under the hood of the t-shirt, turned away from the video cameras, but did not show his emotions at all.

After the verdict was pronounced, his lawyer stated about the intention to file an appeal in the city court over a general security penitentiary, but not an open prison selected as the place of conviction.

For his part, lawyer of the injured parties Igor Trunov also stated that he is not satisfied with the verdict over the fact that the court did not hand down the maximum sentence and reduced considerably the sums of compensations. “The effective law envisages only nine years in a general security penitentiary as the maximum sentence, but in this case the court passed a more lenient sentence for some reasons, and now we can say about the need to toughen the law, but even in the current system Maximov received an unjustified soft sentence,” Trunov said.

Trunov added that he has the information about the transfer of Maximov’s Moscow flat in the property of his brother and stated about the intentions to seek for the deal to be cancelled and use the property for the payments to the injured parties. “The intrigue is that this flat could have been transferred in property of Maximov’s brother after the road accident, and then we will have all the reasons to use it in the provision of the compensations,” Trunov said.

On September 22, 2012, Alexander Maximov rammed in a bus stop in his car in the Minskaya Street, where the group of people were standing, and literally scattered them away. Five teenagers, who are the winners of the Moscow art festival for the children with disabilities “We are Together!”, and their teacher with the husband were killed in the road accident.

The criminal experts have found ethanol in Maximov’s blood tests - 2.78 pro mille, as well as drugs. The police reported that he was repeatedly brought to responsibility for violations of the traffic rules, used the drugs, lived separately from the family and was already stripped of the driving license for drunk driving in 2010.

During the preliminary investigation the injured parties filed a lawsuit against Maximov to the tune of over 80 million roubles.