A resident of Novosibirsk’s Leninsky District received a sentence of eight years and seven months in a penal colony, along with a three-year driving ban, for attempting to flee from traffic police while intoxicated in 2022. The ruling is reported by kp.ru.
The case, as covered by the newspaper, involved a 27-year-old man named Aleksey Knyazev who faced charges under two sections of the Criminal Code. One charge relates to driving a vehicle while intoxicated and endangering others, including the death of two or more people due to the driver’s intoxicated state, and the other concerns the careless operation of a vehicle that caused harm. A mitigating factor cited in the proceedings was the defendant’s service in Syria.
According to investigators, the man drove a serviceable Lada Priora without an OSAGO insurance policy in darkness, disregarded repeated orders to stop, and proceeded along the main road on Svyazistov Street with two passengers aboard, Aleksandra Fedorova, a deputy prosecutor for the Leninsky district, reported. The passengers were not wearing seat belts at the time.
The driver ignored the police signals to halt and attempted to escape. At a speed of around 90 kilometers per hour, the vehicle collided with a dug trench at the intersection of Svyazistov and Zabalueva streets. The trench had been excavated to repair a heating main. The collision left the driver with minor injuries, while one passenger died at the scene and the other succumbed to injuries shortly after in an ambulance. In addition, the accident occurred near utilities that had emerged from the hole moments earlier, suggesting potential damage to underground networks.
Following the court’s verdict, the defendant will be placed in custody, and will remain in detention until the sentence comes into effect.
In a related incident from the day before, a teenager in Omsk was reported to have been injured in a crash while driving his mother’s Mercedes-Benz. Details of that incident were not provided.