MOSCOW, March 24 (RAPSI) – A co-owner of Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall that became a site of deadly fire killing 60 people in March 2018 has been extradited from Poland, a statement published on Tuesday on the official website of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office reads.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has agreed with the Polish authorities the extradition of a co-owner of Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall that became a site of deadly fire killing 60 people in March 2018, a statement on the body’s official website reads on Tuesday.
Vyacheslav Vishnevsky, ex-CEO of the Kemerovo confectionary complex and co-owner of the burnt mall, left Russia in 2016. He was arrested in absentia and put on the international wanted list. He was charged with giving a bribe and arrested in absentia in relation to the investigation into the mall fire case.
In March 2019, he was arrested in Poland; Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office demanded his extradition, the press-release reads.
According to investigators, in 2013-2014, Vishnevsky through an intermediary gave a 7-million-ruble bribe ($106,000) to the regional construction inspection’s chief Tanzilia Komkova, her son Eduard and CEO of ISK Resource company Nikita Cherednichenko. The bribe was allegedly designated for help in favor of Vishnevsky. Komkova, her son and Cherednichenko have been put in detention.
In total, there are 15 defendants in the case over the deadly fire. Depending on their alleged role, they are charged with negligent homicide, fire safety breach resulted in multiple deaths, provision of substandard services and negligence.