MOSCOW. Aug 9 (Interfax-AVN) - The Anadyr Military Court gave a suspended sentence of three years' imprisonment to Lt. Colonel Oleg Kostryukov, who had served as an acting regimental commander of the Federal Security Service's Northwestern Border Guards Directorate.
Kostryukov was pronounced guilty of violating health rules, which led to the death of a conscript named Berezin in December 2003.
He received a suspended sentence of three years' imprisonment with two years of probation, said a report from the Far East Military Region's prosecutor's office.
In late December 2003, several dozen conscripts were hospitalized in the Magadan region with signs of hypothermia. Berezin, who was born in Lyubertsy near Moscow, died on January 2, 2004, of double pneumonia.
According to the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, 111 conscripts were transported to Magadan from Moscow, after which 92 of them applied for medical aid.
In January, Chief Military Prosecutor Alexander Savenkov reported that "22 servicemen with the military rank of general" were questioned during the investigation into the incident.
Over 250 people were questioned in the investigation, including the General Staff, the command of the Siberia and the Far East Military Districts, and the FSB's border service headquarters and regimental commanders, Savenkov said. Conscripts who arrived in Magadan from Moscow to serve in the army were also questioned, he said.
Due to a failure to obey accommodation regulations, the conscripts were forced to remain at freezing airfields whenever their flight from Moscow to Magadan stopped for refueling. After arriving in Magadan, the conscripts were placed in barracks, where the temperature was considerably less than the required level.