KEMEROVO, December 24. /TASS/: A court in Kemerovo on Friday pronounced its verdict in the second case over a fire at the Zimnyaya Vishnya (Winter Cherry) shopping mall in Kemerovo on March 25, 2018, when some 60 people, including 37 children, were killed. Four defendants were sentenced to prison terms from seven to 18 years on charges of bribe-taking, money laundry, and office abuse.
Among those sentenced were former head of the inspection of the Kemerovo Regional Federal Service for Construction Supervision and Inspection Tanzilya Komkova and her son Eduard Komkov, former deputy head of the inspection of the Kemerovo Regional Federal Service for Construction Supervision and Inspection Svetlana Shengerey, and director general of OOO ISK Resurs Nikita Cherednichenko.
According to earlier reports, neither of the defendants recognized his or her guilt.
The fire at the Winter Cherry shopping mall occurred on March 25, 2018. Sixty people, including 37 children died, and another 147 were injured.
In early November 2021, a district court in Kemerovo sentenced the mall’s executives and a door guard, as well as firefighters to prison terms of from five to 14 years. The verdict was challenged and has not yet come into force.
Currently, the court is reviewing criminal cases against director general of OAO Kemerovo Confectionery Complex, the shopping mall’s owner, Vyacheslav Vishnevsky, former head of the Kemerovo Regional Main Directorate of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry Alexander Mamontov, and head of the territorial department of supervision and prevention of the territorial directorate of Russia’s Emergencies Ministry Grigory Terentyev.
