KILLING ON A COMMUTER TRAIN
by Rustam Taktashev

RusData Dialine – Russian Press Digest
May 31, 2006 Wednesday

Armenian youngster killed in another racist attack

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. The lawyer added 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.