ARMENIAN TEEN SLAIN ON TRAIN
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer

The Moscow Times, Russia
May 31 2006

A group of young men yelling “Glory to Russia” stabbed an Armenian
teenager to death last week on a crowded commuter train, prosecutors
and the lawyer of the victim’s family said Tuesday.

Prosecutors are classifying the fatal attack as a hate crime.

Artur Sardaryan, 19, was on the train at about 11 p.m. Thursday when
he was approached by the assailants and repeatedly stabbed in the
chest with a knife, said Yelena Rossokhina, a spokeswoman for the
Moscow region prosecutor’s office.

There were thought to be about 20 people on the train, heading from
Moscow to the city of Pushkino, at the time of the attack.

No suspects had been detained as of Tuesday.

“According to witnesses, the killers were yelling, ‘Glory to Russia’
and ‘Long live Russia,'” said Simon Tsaturyan, the Sardaryan family’s
lawyer.

Tsaturyan said the attackers pulled the train’s emergency lever after
stabbing Sardaryan and fled the scene. Sardaryan died on the spot,
Tsaturyan said.

Tsaturyan said he did not know why it took the authorities five days
before issuing any public statements about the stabbing. Rossokhina
did not comment on the time lag.

Sardaryan was a Russian citizen.

The killing came one month after a 17-year-old ethnic Armenian was
stabbed to death on the platform of the Pushkinksaya metro station
in central Moscow.

There have been numerous hate crimes across the country in recent
months, with victims including Africans, Central Asians and other
dark-skinned people. President Vladimir Putin, in his Victory
Day speech earlier this month, linked skinheads and other violent
extremists with the fascists of the previous century.

On April 23, a group of young people attacked Vagan Abramyants, with
one of them stabbing him with a knife in the chest. Abramyants died
at the scene. One student was detained but was released after police
failed to find enough evidence to charge him.

Tsaturyan, who is also representing Abramyants’ family, said there
had been no breakthroughs in the investigation of last month’s
slaying. Abramyants was also a Russian citizen.

Ara Abramyan, head of the Union of Armenians in Russia, called
Thursday’s slaying a “clear provocation” ahead of the G8 summit in
St. Petersburg “by the forces of evil that don’t want the democratic
and civilized development of Russia,” Interfax reported Tuesday.

Abramyan said Armenians had not been singled out. “Fascists don’t
choose people by their ethnicity,” he told Interfax. “They choose
their victims according to the color of their skin and eyes.”

Abramyan said his organization would organize a conference on hate
crimes by mid-July. The conference would include representatives from
civic organizations and law enforcement officials.

“We believe it’s necessary to organize a round table as soon as
possible to discuss the problem of xenophobia and cultivating
tolerance,” Abramyan told Interfax.

According to Tsaturyan, Sardaryan and his family fled anti-Armenian
pogroms in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1989. Artur Sardaryan obtained Russian
citizenship in 1992.