vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #530 / Crime watch / Reading article...

On August 4 Vladivostok’s Pervorechensky Court released on bail five people charged with negligence and fire safety violations that led to a massive fire in an office building in Vladivostok in January killing nine people and injuring over 20.

The decision was taken at the application of the defense attorneys, who considered that the accused are not socially dangerous and keeping them under arrest is unnecessary.

The five were arrested on charges of negligence soon after the deadly fire, which occurred in a nine-storey building downtown Vladivostok January 16. All nine women killed worked for the state run Sberbank, with its offices on the eighth floor receiving the worst of the blaze and the employees stuck in a fire trap as the stairwells leading to Sberbank were locked. Desperate women, saving themselves from the smoke and flames, jumped out of windows to their deaths.

The five accused include head of the city's Pervorechensky Inspectorate Sergei Luzgan who was to supervise fire safety of residential and office buildings in his district, a senior fire inspector for Pervorechensky residential district Alexei Lobanov, and head of Primorye's Sberbank branch Lyudmila Feofanova. The remaining two are senior engineers for the branch's maintenance department Viktor Hanikov and Viktor Marchenko, one of the office building owners.

Released on bail, which accounts to 100,000 rubles ($3,745) each, the five charged also pledged not to leave the city.

Primorye’s Prosecutor’s Office has not yet issued an official statement regarding the court’s decision. The proceedings in the case, which began July 24, will be recommenced on September 19 after a recess.