The Norilsk City Court suspended proceedings in the case of the death of three people in an avalanche, initiated against local official Yevgeny Panferov because of his departure to Ukraine for the war. A source told Taiga about this.
A criminal case of negligence (Part 3 of Article 293 of the Criminal Code) against Panferov was opened in the winter of 2021. He held the position of head of the civil defense department of the Norilsk administration and, according to the investigation, did not exercise proper control over the activities of his subordinates and did not check the completeness of the weather information included by operational duty officers.
This led to the fact that the forecast for a possible avalanche on January 8, 2021 was not included in the operational report. Snow has fallen on tourist buildings near the mountain-skiing complex Gora Otdelnaya in Norilsk. A 45-year-old man, his 38-year-old wife and a one and a half year old child of the spouses died. Their other 14-year-old son was hospitalized with serious injuries.
In addition to Panferov, defendants in the case of negligence were his subordinates — operational duty officers of the same department Igor Vakulenko, Andrey Zelensky, Andrey Kuzmin and Daniel Rafiev, as well as specialists from the municipal control department of the property department of the city administration Arab Shamsadov and Andrey Listrovoi.
The day before, on May 26, the Norilsk City Court acquitted Vakulenko, Zelensky, Kuzmin and Rafiyev. Shamsadov and Listrov were given two years of probation each. A Taiga source told the publication that the materials of Panferov's case were «separately taken out and suspended.» This is probably due to his departure for the war in Ukraine. The interlocutor of the publication suggested that the case of the official in the end will simply be stopped.
Yevgeny Panferov is the son of Andrei Panferov, vice speaker and leader of the United Russia faction in the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk Region. In winter, the deputy created a volunteer battalion «Vega», consisting of Novosibirsk. «Native Shores» wrote that Panferov Jr. joined his father's military unit.
Taiga also draws attention to the fact that, according to the Kontur.Focus service, Evgeny Panferov, after initiating a criminal case against him, became the director of the local Arktika sports palace. He is still listed as its leader.