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Court remands air hooligan in custody for three days

NOVOSIBIRSK, December 17. /ITAR-TASS/. A court in the city of Ob, Russia’s Novosibirsk region, has remanded in custody for another three days the air hooligan who forced an emergency landing of a passenger plane on Sunday, a spokesman for the Western Siberian transport investigation department told Tass on Tuesday.

According to Anton Chernyshov, investigators need to study additional materials to find guilty Andrei Tretyakov, former deputy governor of the Chelyabinsk region. “The decision has been postponed for 72 hours, during which Tretyakov will remain in custody,” Chernyshov said. The defence had asked the court to release him on one-million-ruble bail.

Tretyakov himself pleaded not guilty, referring to a personal conflict with a flight attendant. He admitted having had three alcoholic cocktails before the flight, and also said he had apologized to the injured flight attendant.

Criminal proceedings against him under the article “Hooliganism” were launched on Monday. The man is facing a penalty or up to five years in prison.

A passenger plane was forced to make an emergency landing at the airport of Novosibirsk, a city in Russian Siberia, on Sunday because of the air hooligan. The conflict flared up when Tretyakov was not allowed to use a business class lavatory. As a result, the air hooligan hit a flight attendant several times.

The flight attendant was brought to one of the Novosibirsk clinics with hematomas and injuries. He refused to remain in hospital and now undergoes out-patient treatment.