ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
September 15, 2006 Friday 0

No ethnic hate behind cafe fight – Saratov police

VOLSK /Saratov region/, September 15

Police in Russia’s Saratov region ruled out ethnic hate as the prime
motive behind the fight in the town of Volsk between local residents
and ethnic Armenians in which one person was fatally stabbed.

“The incident occurred in a Volsk cafe in the evening on September
10,” regional police spokesman Alexei Yegorov told Itar-Tass on
Friday. “Three local residents came up to a table where Armenian
construction workers were taking a meal. A row flared up which
escalated into a knife fight. The injured were taken to hospital,
where one of them, a local resident, died. The other brawlers
escaped,” Yegorov said.

“We see no connection between the incident and ethnic hate. Local
residents have always had friendly relations with representatives of
other nationalities. It was a domestic incident,” he underlined.

Representatives of ethnic communities living in the Saratov region
share this view. “At present, a conference of district heads,
mayors, law-enforcement officials and leaders of the ethnic
communities is taking place in Saratov,” the spokesman went on to
say.

“A joint statement to the residents of the province is in the works;
it will underline that the incident has nothing to do with ethnic
hate and is of domestic nature,” he noted.

A criminal case was opened over the fatal fight. The participants in
the brawl have been put on the wanted list. A more precise evaluation
of what has happened will be made after they have been caught,
investigators said.