Thursday March 11, 2010
Fatal Russia crash fuels anger at police, Lukoil
By Steve Gutterman
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday ordered Russia's interior minister to report to him on a fatal car crash last month involving a senior official of Russia's largest oil company, Lukoil.
The handling of the accident by police and the company has stoked accusations of favourable treatment for the powerful and highlighted the hurdles facing Medvedev's promise to improve the rule of law, a major concern of Russians and foreign investors.
A Mercedes sedan carrying Anatoly Barkov, a Lukoil vice president, collided with a Citroen hatchback on Moscow's Lenin Avenue during the morning rush hour on Feb. 25.
The crash killed the Citroen's occupants -- a 72-year-old woman and her daughter-in-law, 35. Barkov suffered a leg injury and the driver of the Mercedes was unhurt, Lukoil said.
Police quickly blamed the younger woman at the Citroen's wheel for the crash, saying it had swerved into the oncoming lane, and said no security cameras had recorded the accident.
But relatives raised questions about the police account, and suggestions of a cover-up spread on the Internet.
Rights activists said the response to the crash showed that Russians with cash and connections were above the law.
"Corruption long ago turned the traffic police ... into servants of bureaucrats and the rich, while making other motorists second-class citizens," a mix of actors and activists said in an open letter urging Medvedev's intervention.
The Kremlin said Medevedev had read the appeal and ordered Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to look into the crash and "report on all the circumstances related to this tragedy."
Medvedev is in the midst of a push to reform Russia's police force and has criticised the police over a series of scandals.
In the latest, stunned motorists said traffic police stopped their cars on Moscow's ring road on Friday and used them as a roadblock to try to halt armed criminals.
Under pressure over the Feb. 25 crash, police released footage last week showing the Mercedes veering into a centre lane reserved for official vehicles, but it did not show the collision and left relatives looking for answers.
"There was a collision between two cars, and we want to know why. They have blamed my daughter for it," the younger victim's father, Sergei Alexandrin, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Police must prove she was at fault or "take back their words and present a picture of how it really happened," he said.
Some bloggers have called for a boycott of Lukoil's petrol stations, but the company said on Wednesday that sales had not suffered.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Reshetnikov; editing by Robin Pomeroy)
Copyright © 2010 Reuters
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