A Moscow court has rejected a compensation claim by a former professional ice skater who was seriously wounded when a drunken cop went on a shooting spree in a supermarket, Interfax .
Yelena Dudal, who was shot several times in the 2009 Moscow shooting, had sought 1 million rubles ($32,000) from the Finance Ministry, since her assailant, Denis Yevsyukov, was a state employee at the time.
She suffered injuries to her shoulders and neck in the attack, and has been unable to perform on the ice or take part in training since.
Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court denied her claim Wednesday, ruling that the state was not responsible for the damage caused.
Dudal’s lawyer, Dmitry Kolbasin, had argued that the state was liable because the crime — in which two were killed and 22 wounded — was committed by a government official.
The Finance Ministry countered that “what he [Yevsyukov] did was in no way related to his official duties, and therefore the government should not answer for his actions,” a ministry spokesman told the news agency.
Any further ruling against Yevsyukov, who is already serving a life sentence, would be a mere formality, Kolbasin said, according to Interfax.
On Feb. 19, 2010, the Moscow City Court found Yevsyukov guilty on all counts of murder, attempted murder and illegal weapons trafficking. The Supreme Court later upheld the ruling.
A Moscow court later rejected a request to have Yevsyukov transferred closer to Moscow from a prison in the Arctic.
