Case Opened in Road Death Of Construction Migrant Workers
Published: September 21, 2011 (Issue # 1675)
MOSCOW — Moscow region police are investigating a road incident in which four Moldovan men were struck and killed by a pair of luxury vehicles, possibly owned by a large bank, news reports said Tuesday.
The victims, all construction workers, were crossing the road leading to Domodedovo Airport early Monday when they were rammed by a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Mercedes S-600, Gazeta.ru said.
The impact scattered the men, killing three on the spot. The fourth died hours later in a hospital in the nearby town of Vidnoye, Interfax said.
The identities of the cars’ owners, drivers and passengers were unclear late Tuesday. But activists with Blue Buckets, a motorist group that opposes the abuse of road privileges by VIPs, said the license plates on the cars suggested VIP status.
Blue Buckets claimed to have tracked the Land Cruiser’s license plate number back to a leasing company called Avangard-Leasing, owned by Avangard Bank.
Bank representatives said they “had no information that the bank’s vehicles were involved in this accident,” Gazeta.ru reported. Regional police refused to confirm or deny the report.
The Mercedes featured the rare and highly coveted letter combination “MMR,” which police treat like a flashing blue light, giving users the right to ignore traffic rules, Blue Bucket coordinator Pyotr Shkumatov told Dozhd television.
Another Blue Bucket activist speculated on the group’s LiveJournal community that the Land Cruiser was being used as a security escort, but a police spokesman denied that the vehicles had formed a VIP convoy, RIA-Novosti reported.
LiveJournal user Alienoraa, who drove by the crash site, wrote that the two cars did not have flashing blue lights, but added that their license plates were covered after the crash.
A case was opened on charges of involuntary manslaughter of multiple people, which carries a maximum punishment of seven years in prison, RIA-Novosti reported, citing local police.