For Russians, Car Wreck Is A Case Study In Privilege

A judge ruled that Shcherbinsky should have seen the Mercedes and stopped even though the turn was legal and there was plenty of room on Shcherbinsky's right for the Mercedes to pass. On Feb. 3, the judge sentenced him to four years in a labor colony for careless driving leading to the death of others and for not yielding to a car with priority. Defense attorneys described the proceeding in detail in interviews here, and journalists were allowed to attend the reading of the verdict that summarized the evidence in the case.

"Why must simple people answer for the mistakes of others?" said Natalia Golosova, 31, who was among about 1,000 people at the rally in Moscow Sunday.

Shcherbinsky's attorneys argue that the governor's driver was either going so fast that he could not correct the car and move it to the right or that he mistakenly thought he could squeeze through on Shcherbinsky's left.

"It was an ordinary traffic accident, but the trouble was that in one of the cars was the governor of the region," said Andrei Karpov, one of two attorneys for Shcherbinsky, whose defense has been paid for by donations from motorist clubs across Russia and the railroad workers union. "The driver of the governor's car was driving without thinking, driving extremely fast and no longer in control of the car."

That also seemed to be the opinion of local officials immediately after the accident. Traffic police at first said the Mercedes was passing illegally, and the governor's spokesman, responding to suggestions that the crash might have been a staged assassination, said it was simply an accident.

"We hoped the investigation would be fair," Shcherbinskaya said in an interview outside the jail in Biisk where her husband will be held until his first appeal is heard. "But then I think they decided that someone had to be guilty."

The initial speculation about an assassination was prompted by the fact that the Interior Ministry had withdrawn Yevdokimov's escort car a week before the accident, saying governors were not entitled to them.

Yevdokimov, who had defeated a candidate from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party to become governor, was constantly struggling with local political elites. The regional parliament twice passed motions of no confidence in him.

But the governor remained popular with the people, and because of his fame as an actor his death reverberated nationally. An opinion poll in December found that 36 percent of respondents said Yevdokimov's death was the political event of the year, making it a more popular choice than the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the controversial imprisonment of tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In November, Yevdokimov's widow, Galina Yevdokimova, appeared to issue a letter vindicating Shcherbinsky, calling him an "ordinary man" who had neither "high ranks or relations." She also said regional officials should explain why her husband had no escort car.

But by then, prosecutors had decided to try Shcherbinsky. Yevdokimova, in a later statement, said she never issued the letter, although local reporters in the Altai region said they believed that it was genuine and that the widow had been pressured to withdraw it.

A spokesman from the regional prosecutor's office declined to comment on the case.

At the trial, District Court Judge Galina Sheglovskaya rejected every defense motion, including demands for an expert examination of the speed of the governor's car. Every prosecution motion was granted.

"Oleg had to pay," said Sergei Shmakov, one of Shcherbinsky's attorneys, "but only because he's alive."