UPDATE: Russian court puts Domodedovo’s co-founder under house arrest

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MOSCOW, Feb 19 (PRIME) -- The Moscow Basmanny Court on Friday put billionaire Dmitry Kamenshchik, a co-founder of Russia’s Domodedovo International Airport, under a house arrest on request of the Investigative Committee in the framework of a criminal case following a 2011 explosion in the airport.

On January 24, 2011, an explosion hit the baggage-claim area of Domodedovo; 37 people, including foreigners, were killed, and 172 people were injured. Kamenshchik was detained on Thursday and charged with providing services that did not meet safety requirements and led to peoples’ death.

“To choose a pre-trial restriction regarding Kamenshchik in the form of a house arrest,” Judge Yelena Lenskaya said.

The billionaire’s defense will challenge the decision. “I will file an appeal to the Moscow City Court,” Mikhail Kolpakov, Kamenshchik’s laywer, said.

Earlier on Friday, the Prosecutor General’s Office demanded Investigative Committee’s Chief Alexander Bastrykin void a criminal case against Kamenshchik as the case’s launch was illegal.

“The Prosecutor General’s Office has sent a request to the Investigative Committee’s chief to stop this criminal case,” a prosecutor said, adding that there were no legal grounds to detain Kamenshchik. “They just took an indictment charging (the airport’s ex-CEO Vyacheslav) Nekrasov and typed in Kamenshchik’s surname.”

Lawyers of the airport’s co-founder said he denied any charges. They said there were no grounds for putting Kamenshchik under house arrest and offered a 15 million ruble bail instead. One of the lawyers said that his arrest was illegal as Kamenshchik was called in for questioning as a witness and immediately detained.

Kolpakov also said that investigators must prove that the safety standards developed by Kamenshchik in 2011 were direct reason of 37 deaths. “But the investigation will be unable to prove that, as there was another reason (the explosion),” he said.

Kamenshchik confirmed that he is the ultimate beneficiary owner of Domodedovo International Airport.

The Investigative Committee decided to prolong investigation under the criminal case against Kamenshchik until April 28.

(75.4575 rubles – U.S. $1)

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