Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Pushkinskaya attack story looks totally different now. And confusing.

(Sources: Kommersant, Gazeta.ru, something else, I guess - I've been reading it throughout the day but couldn't find time to post anything here, and now that I do have time, I'm too tired to think clearly...)

According to investigation officials, Abramyants and Kulagin had commmon friends - among Lokomotiv and Spartak fans - but didn't know each other. Abramyants said something rude to Zhanna Nefedova, Kulagin's 15-year-old girlfriend, and Kulagin stabbed and killed him. Video cameras installed at the station didn't record the killing, nor are there any records of skinheads getting off a Vyhino-bound train. Kulagin's mother says her son's interrogation lasted four hours and there was no lawyer present. Then the interrogators invited her into the room and announced Kulagin's choices: either he admits to killing Abramyants out of jealousy and gets a minimal sentence, or he faces 15 years in jail for ethnically motivated murder. Kulagin's mother told her son to choose the former, but he later retracted his confession. The Abramyants family lawyer insists on the skinhead version: they spent some time walking around the station before picking their victim; Abramyants was stabbed in the heart, which may mean the attacker wasn't an amateur; Abramyants was a nice, hardworking boy from a good family, not some violent football fan; two more guys were wounded, which possibly means there were several attackers.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, this story just keeps getting more muddled as mixed information comes out. I'm not sure what to think of it anymore.

    I was in Pushkinskaya station on Monday and there was a huge crowd around a memorial of flowers for Abramyants. Here's a picture: http://flickr.com/photos/digenis/135265877/

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