A deadly shootout at a Moscow regional court on Tuesday in which three people were killed could be the result of negligence on behalf of law enforcement.
The five suspected members of the GTA Gang who came to the court on Tuesday for a hearing should have been accompanied by at least ten guards, the RBC outlet reports, citing Interior Ministry rules which are not public.
The rules stipulate that there should be at least one guard per suspect.
Instead, there were only two guards for the entire group, according to the Moscow Investigative Committee.
Regulations also do not allow suspects to be transported in elevators or in a single group, RBC says, citing lawyers.
Three defendants were killed, and a number of others were injured during the deadly shooting at a Moscow Regional Court on Tuesday afternoon.
The standoff ensued after some of the suspected gang members attacked the two officers accompanying them in an elevator in an attempt to escape.
The defendants belonged to a criminal group known as the GTA Gang, named after the violent video game, which was accused of 17 killings on roads in the Moscow and Kaluga regions between 2012 and 2015.
Since the deadly incident, concerns have been raised about security at the court.
“When I attended the hearings of the GTA Gang, I was always stunned why nine defendants were being accompanied by only two or three guards, and one court marshal who was always sleeping in the courtroom,” journalist Andrei Karev wrote on Facebook.
The regional branches of the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Investigative Committee said Wednesday in online statements that they were investigating the incident.
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