Court amnesties men accused of 2011 Karelia Tu-134 plane crash
PETROZAVODSK. March 7 (Interfax) - The Prionezhsky district court in Karelia found the defendants guilty of the 2011 crash of a Tupolev-134 aircraft in Karelia but then amnestied all three.
"With respect to Vladimir Shkarupa, Vladimir Pronin and Eduard Voitovsky the court [hereby] applies an act of amnesty with a release from serving the sentence and removal of the conviction," judge Natalia Molodtsova read out the judgment on Tuesday.
Each of the accused is to pay 200,000 rubles in legal costs.
At the same time, the court refused to consider victims' civil lawsuits by sending them to another court for consideration.
It was reported that a Tu-134 aircraft operated by RusAir, which was making a charter flight from Moscow to Petrozavodsk, crashed on approach to Petrozavodsk in the early hours of June 21, 2011. There were 43 passengers and nine crew members on board. Forty-seven were killed, the rest sustained serious injuries. The air crash caused the aircraft owner losses of over 16 million rubles.
Voitovsky, head of radio support for flights and air electronic communications at the Federal Air Transport Agency, was charged with negligence. Shkarupa, deputy general director at Petrozavodsk airport; and Pronin, the airport's acting head of the meteorological station, were charged with violating air transport operation and safety rules.
