Defense achieves acquittal of Berezhnoy in case of collapsed five-story building

The court upheld the acquittal of the former head of the Voroshilovsky district of Rostov-on-Don, Viktor Berezhnoy, who was accused of negligence in connection with the collapse of the entrance of a five-story building on Narimanov Street.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" reported, on April 28, the former head of the Voroshilovsky district administration, Viktor Berezhnoy, was acquitted by the court in the negligence case. The judge concluded that the official's actions did not constitute a crime. Residents of the building agreed with the court's position and demanded that the real culprits be punished. The prosecutor's office challenged the verdict.

The former head of the Voroshilovsky district, Viktor Berezhnoy, has been acquitted, Rostov-on-Don City Duma deputy Natalya Oskina reported today on her Telegram channel.

"They tried to frame him and accuse him of negligence for the collapse of the building on Narimanov Street, 72/2. However, the lawyers, the victims and we, as lawyers by proxy from the residents, on the basis of the elaboration of legislation, facts, job descriptions, local legislation, and charters, achieved the approval of an acquittal, despite all attempts by the prosecutor's office to twist the facts and abuse the right, to distort the meaning. Today Rostov the regional court, based on our written arguments and a mass of testimony from witnesses and victims, confirmed the innocence of the former district administration official," she wrote.

According to her, Berezhnoy's lawyers found "references to non-existent norms of laws and plenary sessions" in the prosecutor's office's submission.

"I would like to hope that the conscience of the administration's legal department will awaken when filing a bunch of unnecessary complaints and delaying legal proceedings against residents of Narimanov, and a year and a half after the collapse, people will be paid their legal pennies for housing and moral damages!", she noted.

The case file on the Rostov Regional Court website states that the appeal was considered during two hearings, the last one was scheduled for today. There is no information about the decision made on the court website.

Recall that about 70 families are challenging in court the Rostov-on-Don administration's decision on the amount of payment for apartments in the partially collapsed building on Narimanov Street, some of them have already won their cases. The 1.3 million rubles that the administration agreed to pay are not enough to buy housing, they said.

We recall that Rostov City Duma deputy and lawyer Natalya Oskina previously considered the prosecution of the district head unfair because he had neither the authority nor the ability to solve the problem.

"According to the legislation on municipal authorities, the city districts are distributed only to make it easier to conduct economic activities, while no city district has the power, authority or rights to form a budget. There is a municipal structure in which the city administration is the executive authority, it is the one that forms applications for the seizure of land plots under dilapidated buildings, for recognizing a particular building as dilapidated, subject to demolition or reconstruction. It is the city administration that is authorized to propose and collect lists of citizens for resettlement to the maneuverable fund," she told Kavkazsky node".

On April 21, 2024, residents of a five-story building on Narimanov Street complained that 2.5 months after the collapse of the entrance, they could not take their things from their apartments due to the inaction of officials.

In June of the same year, the police detained about 20 apartment owners who tried to take their things. The security forces checked the documents and things taken from the house and took statements, after which they released the detainees.

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