MOSCOW, December 21 (RAPSI) – Prosecutors on Friday demanded that defendants in a criminal case on the death of children in Karelia’s Syamozero lake in 2016 be sentenced to prison terms of up to 9.5 years in penal colony, RAPSI was told in the Petrozavodsk City Court. 

Specifically, the court was asked to sentence director of Syamozero Park Hotel camp Elena Reshetova to 9.5 years behind bars, her deputy Vadim Vinogradov to 8 years, the camp’s instructor Valery Krupodershikov, ex-chief of Karelia’s Rospotrebnadzor Anatoly Kovalenko, his deputy Lyudmila Kotovich to 6 years, and other instructor Pavel Ilyin to 4 years, a representative of the court said.

Reshetova, Vinogradov Krupodershikov and Ilyin are charged with rendering of services in violation of safety protocol which accidentally lead two or more people to death. Kovalenko and Kotovich are accused of negligence.

According to investigators, on June 18, 2016, 47 children and instructors of the children’s camp Park-Hotel “Syamozero” were sailing on a raft and two canoes over the lake Syamozero in Karelia despite the fact that management of the camp were informed about dangerous weather conditions.

Children were accompanied by 4 adults who did not take gathering storm into account. Storm made sailing extremely dangerous: a raft with children and two adults washed up near one of the islands while both canoes were capsized, leaving passengers in the open waters. Only some managed to swim across to the shore. 14 children drowned. Other children survived and were evacuated.

In April 2017, ambulance paramedic Irina Shcherbakova, who had refused to notify rescue services about children drowning in Syamozero, received a 3-year prison term. The sentence was suspended until Shcherbakova’s daughter reaches the age of 14.