SUSPECT IN RACIST KILLING SAID TO BE POLICE ACADEMY CADET – PART 2
The Moscow Times
Thursday, September 14, 2006. Issue 3497. Page 2.
The 18-year-old suspect in the racially motivated killing of an
Armenian teenager in the Moscow metro in April was a police academy
cadet, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Nikita Senyukov was arrested Tuesday in connection with the stabbing
death of Vigen Abramyants, 17, on the platform of Pushkinskaya metro
station on April 22.
"He was a fourth-year student of a police academy under the Moscow
police," said Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for the office of the
chief Moscow prosecutor.
Petrenko said Senyukov had admitted to the crime but said he acted
in self-defense after Abramyants attacked him.
She said Senyukov would be charged with murder later this week. If
convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
The police academy’s head, Alexei Bezyazychny, told Ekho Moskvy
radio that Senyukov had dropped out of the academy shortly before his
arrest. He said that Senyukov’s father is a retired senior officer
from the Interior Ministry.
Kommersant and Moskovsky Komsomolets on Wednesday linked Senyukov to
a group of Moscow students accused of bombing the Cherkizovsky outdoor
market in August, killing 12 people and wounding more than 50 others.
Investigators believe the attack was motivated by hatred for natives
of the Caucasus and Asian countries who trade at the market.
Four men have been detained in connection with the attack.
Petrenko, however, denied any link between the market bombing and
the metro attack.