Russian Police Detain Hospice Owner After 9 People Die in Fire

A firefighter walks past a private hospice after a fire killed nine elderly people in Krasnogorsk outside Moscow on May 11, 2020. (Russian Emergency Situations Ministry/Handout via Reuters)

MOSCOW—Russian investigators said on May 11 they had detained the owner of a private hospice outside Moscow after a fire there killed nine elderly people and hospitalized nine others.

Investigators said they suspected that the blaze, which broke out during the night, was caused by faulty electrical wiring in the hospice for elderly people in Krasnogorsk, which is located in the wider Moscow region.

A medical specialist takes an antibody test in Hadassah clinic at the Skolkovo innovation center on the outskirts of Moscow on April 24, 2020. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Amid the CCP virus pandemic, a Russian cadet wearing a mask stands guard in front of a military memorial during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two in Vladivostok, Russia, on May 9, 2020. (Pavel Korolyov/AFP via Getty Images)

“The bodies of nine people aged between 66 and 90 years were found with thermal burns... nine more people were hospitalized,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.

A criminal investigation had been opened to establish whether safety rules were violated, it said.

The incident follows another fire on Saturday at a Moscow hospital treating patients infected with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus which left one person dead.

By Andrey Kuzmin

Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.