Back on Jan. 20, 2009, a 35-year-old previously convicted criminal named Sergey Vlasenko was driving a MAZ truck with a semi-trailer on the road leading from the Volgogradskoye chaussée to the settlement of Konstantinov of Ramenskoye Rayon of Moscow Oblast in mid-afternoon on a clear day. Traveling at high speed, Vlasenko’s vehicle struck a GAZ Gazelle which was parked on the shoulder of the road. As a result of the the accident, both passengers sitting inside the Gazelle, I. Yefimova and S.Mustafayev, were killed.

Charged with an offense similar to vehicular manslaughter under article 264 part 5 of the Criminal Code (CrimC) of the RF, Ramenskoye City Court Judge T. Bayeva sentenced the driver to three years deprivation of liberty in a so-called “colony settlement” [The mildest category of imprisonment in Russia–Trans.].

In the verdict, the Judge notes that Vlasenko had been sentenced back in 2007 for armed assault and robbery to a four-year suspended sentence. Nevertheless, despite Vlasenko’s guilty plea with respect to the traffic accident, the court did not see fit to pass down anything but the lightest punishment, falling far short of the sentencing recommended by Article 264 [it is punished by deprivation of liberty for a term of up to seven years with deprivation of the right to drive a means of transport for a term of up to three years–G.P.].  This kind of handling of such cases is usually the common practice in many Russian courts, all the more so in a situation when two people have died. The court did not consider arguments from the victims’ families on moral damages, having ruled that these ought to be examined in the order of civil judicial proceedings.