Former police Major Denis Yevsyukov, who went on a shooting rampage in a Moscow supermarket in April that killed two people, asked a court Monday to be tried by a panel of three judges rather than a jury.
The Moscow City Court agreed to the request and set the opening of his trial for next Monday, court spokeswoman Anna Usachyova told Interfax.
The court also ruled to open the trial to the public.
Yevsyukov is charged with two counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder, and he faces life in prison if convicted.
The rampage, captured on supermarket security cameras, shocked the public and stirred accusations of police brutality and arbitrariness, forcing President Dmitry Medvedev to fire long-serving Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin.
Yevsyukov showed up at Tuesday’s preliminary hearing smiling and chatting with his defense team. Dressed in black pants and a turtleneck, Yevsyukov, 32, sported a new goatee and looked considerably thinner than at the time of his arrest.
Igor Trunov, a renowned lawyer who represents two people injured in the shooting, told reporters outside the court that Yevsyukov looked fully in control of himself during the hearing, which was held behind closed doors.
Earlier media reports had suggested that Yevsyukov might tell the court that he had suffered a mental blackout during the shooting.
“He looked arrogant and in full possession of his psychological facilities,” Trunov said.
Court psychiatrists have determined that Yevsyukov was psychological fit at the time of the rampage.
Prosecutor Nikolai Vlasov said 46 witnesses would be called to testify during the trial.
Yevsyukov, a former senior officer in the Tsaritsyno police force in southern Moscow, killed a taxi driver after quarreling with his wife at his 32nd birthday party on April 27. Then he walked into a supermarket, gunned down a female cashier and fired randomly at other shoppers. He was overwhelmed by a police patrol that arrived at the shooting.
Two people wounded in the attack have sued the authorities for compensation but lost because the court upheld the police force’s assertion that it was not responsible because Yevsyukov had been off-duty.
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