MOSCOW, October 1 (RAPSI) – The Kemerovo Regional Court has upheld detention of a former employee of the State Construction Supervision and Inspection Service Svetlana Shengerei as part of a case over blaze in Kemerovo’s Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall that left 60 people dead, the press-service of the court has told RAPSI.
An appeal against previous ruling of the Central District Court of Kemerovo was dismissed. Shengerei charged with abuse of office will stay in detention until November 13.
Earlier, investigation was completed into seven defendants in the case, Yulia Bogdanova, CEO of the Kemerovsky Confectionary Combine, a company owning the mall, technical director of the mall’s owner company Georgy Sobolev, the mall’s manager Nadezhda Suddenok, a guard who allegedly turned off the emergency notification system when he received a fire signal Sergey Antyushin, CEO of the company System Integrator that developed the fire safety system Igor Polozinenko; an employee of the company, who personally installed the fire alarm Alexander Nikitin and fire team commander Sergey Genin.
Investigation into five other defendants is still ongoing. They are: the ex-director of the Emergency Ministry’s department for Kemerovo Region Alexander Mamontov, chief of the ministry’s directorate for Kemerovo Grigory Terentyev, chief of the region’s State Construction Inspection Tanziliya Komkova, the fire control service chief of the Federal Fire-Fighting Service’s regional department’s 1 team Andrey Bursin and Shengerei.
The fire occurred in the mall on March 25. According to investigators, 60 people including dozens of children were killed by fire. Initially it was reported that 64 people died.