MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) - A jury has found former Moscow police officer Alexei Smirnov guilty of gunning down his colleagues at the Ryazansky Prospekt station of the Moscow metro in September 2019.
"A jury at the Moscow City Court has pronounced its verdict in the criminal case against Alexei Smirnov, who has been found guilty of two attempts on the lives of police officers," the press service for the Moscow City Court told Interfax on Thursday.
"The jurors unanimously answered 'yes' to a question whether Smirnov deserved lenience," the press service said.
The jury acquitted Smirnov on counts of another attempt on someone's life and two cases of bribery.
Consistent with the jury's verdict, Smirnov will not face the maximum penalty envisaged for defendants accused of attempts on the lives of law enforcement officers: life in prison.
Now that the verdict has been pronounced, the parties will continue to discuss its consequences in the absence of jurors, and the court will recess to chambers for drafting a sentence consistent with the verdict.
The hearing of the consequences of the jury's verdict has been scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on February 17, the press service said.
Investigators charged Smirnov with attempts on the lives of law enforcement officers, extortion, and receiving a bribe of less than 10,000 rubles.
According to the case materials, Smirnov, then a 34-year-old patrol officer, was detained in the lobby of the Ryazansky Prospekt metro station in the evening of September 18, 2019, on suspicion of taking a bribe from a person not carrying an ID and fired his service weapon at officers of the Interior Ministry's internal affairs department.
One officer died instantly, the other was hospitalized in serious condition, and Smirnov was detained.
The Moscow branch of the Russian Investigative Committee said earlier that, as established by the investigators, Smirnov extorted a bribe of 20,000 rubles from a foreign citizen in exchange for not opening an administrative proceeding in May 2019, shortly before the shooting.
The jury established that Smirnov, "approached by officers from the Moscow police department's internal affairs division, who were acting in the line of duty, identified themselves, and presented their official IDs, [...] fired his service weapon at the police officers and injured two of them in order to avoid unfavorable consequences."