2 BRUTALLY STABBED TO DEATH IN APPARENT HATE CRIMES
by Carl Schreck, Staff Writer
The Moscow Times
April 19, 2007 Thursday
A Tajik citizen and an ethnic Armenian were brutally stabbed to
death in separate attacks that appear racially motivated, authorities
said Wednesday.
Five suspects have been detained in connection with the stabbings,
one of which was recorded by a video surveillance camera.
Khairullo Sadykov, 26, a street sweeper from Tajikistan, was stabbed
35 times on Monday evening outside an apartment building on Ulitsa
Metallurgov, near the Perovo metro station in eastern Moscow, said
Sergei Vasilovsky, chief investigator at the Eastern Administrative
District prosecutor’s office.
He died on the spot.
Vasilovsky did not have information about arrests in connection with
the death. But a law enforcement source told Komsomolskaya Pravda that
two teenagers resembling skinheads had been detained thanks to video
footage from a surveillance camera installed near a building entryway.
The footage showed two young men of Slavic appearance with shaven heads
stabbing Sadykov, and both were wearing "high, laced-up, army-style
boots," the source said, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Wednesday.
The report identified the suspects as Pavel Skachayevsky, a 17-year-old
student at the Russian State Physical Education University, and
Artur Ryno, a 17-year-old art student. The clothes they were wearing
when detained were covered in blood, and they closely resembled the
attackers on the surveillance video, the report said.
Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation. If charged and
convicted, the two suspects face up to life in prison.
In the other attack, Armenian businessman Karen Abramyan, 46, was
stabbed 20 times by three assailants at around 10 p.m. Monday in
southwest Moscow, police said.
Abramyan was taken to a hospital, where he died of his wounds.
A law enforcement source told Interfax that three young men had been
detained. The source said the trio had shaved heads and were wearing
army-style boots.
"After he was taken to the hospital, the victim said he was attacked
because of his ethnicity, saying the young men were shouting racial
epithets," the source was quoted as saying.
The source said the detainees had admitted to stabbing the businessman.
A police spokesman declined to comment on the detentions.