The investigation into who was to blame for a car crash involving a senior Lukoil manager could well be re-opened.

Police closed the case after concluding the woman driver who was killed in the accident was responsible. The Constitutional Court, however, ruled that her relatives had the right to insist the investigation be continued.

“We lawyers, we've been waiting for this amendment,” lawyer Pyotr Dombrovitsky told RT. “There have been lots of cases – mostly road accidents – that have been closed after police established that the person responsible had died. Now such cases can be resumed and even end up in court. This is very important for the relatives of the victims.”

The fatal collision happened in February in central Moscow. A Mercedes carrying Lukoil vice-president Anatoly Barkov crashed head-on with a Citroen. The driver and the passenger of the Citroen, Olga Aleksandrina and her mother-in-law, Vera Sidelnikova, died.

The incident drew much public attention, with many sympathizing with the two female victims and putting the blame on the Lukoil officer and his driver.

A car-owners’ group has accused Moscow authorities of bias and tampering with the evidence.They believe that the CCTV footage shown by police as circumstantial proof was not taken on the day of the accident, but rather two days earlier on a public holiday, when the traffic was not so heavy.