Kickboxer kills passer by at one blow for no reason

It seems that Rasul Mizaev now has a follower. A kickboxer from Russia's Saratov killed a passer by at one blow.

Alexander Khromov, 20, a kickboxer, was going home from a nightclub with his girlfriend and several friends. The young man was trying to demonstrate his macho qualities in front of the young lady, so he was picking on casual passers by.

Khromov's friends stared to make jokes about his sports achievements: the athlete had lost several fights. Khromov got angry and decided to prove to his company that he was still in a good shape.

The athlete approached a casual passer by and simply knocked him out, Utro.ru reports.

"It was not even a brawl. Khromov simply called over the man - Viktor Seleznyov - and asked him something like "What are you looking at?" and hit him on the head at hard as he could," Vladimir Alabyev, an official spokesman for the law-enforcement agencies of Saratov said.

The victim was 50 years of age. The man collapsed on the ground and never stood up. The eyewitnesses of the incident - the victim's neighbors - called the police and the ambulance. The man was hospitalized with cranial injuries. He died in four days.

The athlete was arrested on the scene. A criminal case has been filed against the kickboxer on article 111 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation - "Intended infliction of bodily harm that caused death." The man can now be sentenced to 15 years in jail. Khromov said during investigation that the 50-year-old victim had given a dirty look to his girlfriend. Eyewitnesses said, though, that the athlete attacked the man for no reason.

On August 13, 2011, a three-time martial arts world champion Rasul Mirzaev delivered a lethal blow to student Ivan Agafonov near a nightclub in Moscow. The student died at hospital several days after the incident, without regaining consciousness. The athlete acknowledged his guilt at first, but subsequently claimed that he had hit the victim for self-defense purposes.

Ukraine Reporter's Widow Blames Ex-President

KIEV, Ukraine -- Eleven years after a Ukrainian investigative journalist was abducted and killed, his widow finally has faint hope that the masterminds of the murder will be brought to justice.

Former President Leonid Kuchma is slated to go on trial on charges of abuse of office in connection with the killing of Heorhiy Gongadze in the coming months.

Prosecutors contend Kuchma gave illegal orders to his subordinates that eventually led to Gongadze's death.

"I believe that Kuchma is to blame for Gia's death," Gongadze's 39-year-old widow Myroslava said, using Heorhiy's nickname. "Kuchma ... and the machine for settling scores with political opponents and journalists."

She spoke late Thursday by telephone from Washington, where she and her two daughters have been given political asylum.

Kuchma denies the allegations and says key evidence — tape recordings in which he allegedly conspires against the journalist — was doctored.

On Sept. 16, 2000, Heorhiy Gongadze got into what he thought was a taxi, and was then joined by three others and driven outside Kiev.

He was beaten and strangled, his body doused with gasoline and burned.

Gongadze's beheaded body was discovered in a forest outside Kiev several months later.

Experts believe Gongadze was decapitated after his death.

Journalists, activists and friends will hold a rally in Kiev in Gongadze's memory later Friday.

The killing of Gongadze, who crusaded against official corruption, triggered months of protests against the president, a movement dubbed "Ukraine without Kuchma."

Those protests were seen as a precursor to the 2004 Orange Revolution, which overthrew the fraud-tainted victory of Kuchma's protege Viktor Yanukovych.

But Yanukovych returned to power after winning presidential elections last year and many observers were surprised when Kuchma, his former mentor, was charged under Yanukovych's watch.

Some say the case against Kuchma is Yanukovych's attempt to boost his own popularity by portraying himself as a leader committed to the rule of law.

Gongadze, who was 31 when he was killed, was a harsh critic of Kuchma's rule who founded an online newspaper that exposed corruption by senior government officials.

Three former police officers were convicted of involvement in Gongadze's killing and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in 2008, and another top law enforcement officer, former Interior Ministry general Olexiy Pukach, is currently on trial.

Pukach has confessed to killing Gongadze.

During his closed-door trial, Pukach claimed that he killed Gongadze at the behest of Kuchma and other senior government officials.

Kuchma's lawyers dismissed the accusations as an attempt by Pukach, who faces life in prison, to deflect blame from himself.

Gongadze's widow moved to the U.S. several months after his death with their twin daughters Nana and Salome, now 13, after she discovered that her phone was being tapped and she was under constant surveillance.

Gongadze, also a journalist, continued her career in the U.S. working for Voice of America's Ukrainian service.

Myroslava Gongadze said it makes no difference to her whether Kuchma explicitly ordered her husband's murder, or merely wanted to scare him.

"Gia is dead, my children have been deprived of a father, me of a husband and friend, and society of a good journalist," she said.

For that, Kuchma must be punished, she insisted.

"If Ukraine calls itself a democratic country, this must happen," she said.

Lawyer: Russia Not Trying Real Politkovskaya Killers

MOSCOW, Russia -- Three men on trial for helping murder Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya were just pawns and the real killers are at large, a lawyer for Politkovskaya's family told the trial on Monday.The murder of Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter who reported on human rights abuses, provoked an outcry in the West and raised concerns about the dangers to reporters and rights campaigners in Russia.Two Chechen brothers, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, are charged with helping guide the killer to Politkovskaya and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov is accused of providing technical help. All three say they are innocent.Rustam Makhmudov, suspected of shooting Politkovskaya outsider her apartment in 2006, is on the run. Prosecutors have never identified who ordered the killing."The whole thing has been organised at a high level, not at the level of the defendants," lawyer Karina Moskalenko told the jury in a Moscow courtroom as legal teams in the lengthy trial began their closing arguments."I will never believe the Chechen boys had their own reasons (to kill Politkovskaya)," she said. "I have drawn my own conclusion that the boys have been used by someone. The question is whether they knew or not."Politkovskaya, a mother of two who was 48 when she was killed, had won prominence for attacking what she saw as Russia surrendering its democratic freedoms under Vladimir Putin, who was president until last year.Human rights abuses and corruption in the North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya, were a target of her criticism, infuriating officials in the region as well as in Moscow.Putin, now serving as prime minister, has rejected suggestions in the West that the Kremlin could have been behind Politkovskaya's killing. Russian officials say the murder was an attempt to discredit the Kremlin.But addressing jury members, Moskalenko appeared to direct the blame for the murder at the authorities."Who could hate Anya (Politkovskaya) for her articles? Those who are responsible for what was happening in Chechnya," she said, without identifying any individuals.

Head of Azerbaijan’s air force shot dead

BAKU, Azerbaijan - An unidentified gunman fatally shot Azerbaijan's air force chief on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said - the highest-level killing to hit the oil-rich country's armed forces in peacetime since the Soviet collapse.
President Ilham Aliyev in televised comments called the slaying a "terrible crime" and said he would take personal control of the investigation.
"I demand the law enforcement agencies find and hold responsible those who carried out and ordered this terrible crime," Aliyev said.
Azerbaijan's chief military prosecutor, speaking from the rain-soaked site of the shooting outside Lt. Gen. Rail Rzayev's home in the capital, Baku, said authorities did not know the motive.
Strategically located bet­ween Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan is a crucial link in Western efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy exports and a target in Moscow's tug-of-war with the United States over regional influence. But there was no immediate sign of a link with that struggle.
Tension with neighboring Armenia remains high 15 years after a cease-fire in a war that left Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh territory in ethnic Armenian hands. Ruled for most of the past 15 years by members of a single family, Azerbaijan has a rich history of alleged coup plots and political machinations.
According to chief military prosecutor Khanlar Veliyev, Rzayev's driver told investigators both men were outside the general's home and the driver was throwing bag of garbage away at the request of his boss when he heard a gunshot. Veliyev said it appeared Rzayev died of a single gunshot wound to the head.
Rzayev had gotten into his car to be driven to work when he was shot, the private television station Lider reported. Veliyev said investigators were looking at security-camera footage from the home and searching the area for clues, but were hampered by the heavy rains that fell all night.
Rzayev, 63, was a longtime Soviet military officer who became head of Azerbaijan's air force shortly after the country gained independence in the 1991 Soviet collapse.
As air-defense forces chief, he had represented Azerbaijan in talks with Russia and the U.S. on Moscow's 2007 proposal to make a Soviet-built radar station in Azerbaijan part of a joint missile shield to protect against potential threat from Iran.
The Kremlin proposal failed to persuade the U.S. administration to abandon plans for missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Russian officials contend are actually aimed to weaken their country.
Moscow uses the Gabala station as part of its early-warning system. It is renting the Gabala station until at least 2012, but is building a radar station in southern Russia as a potential alternative once that lease expires.
The United States and European Union have cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan because of its oil riches and its location on an energy export route bypassing Russia and Iran, and Azerbaijan is one of the few mostly Muslim countries that have sent troops to Iraq. But the U.S. and Europe have expressed concern over government treatment of opponents and independent media under Aliyev, who succeeded his long-ruling father in 2003 after an election the opposition said was rigged.

No outcry over Russian killings

Following the murders of a lawyer and journalist in Moscow, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes asks why little appears to have been done to find those responsible. There is a tendency for many to resort to stereotypes when describing Russia.
The Fleet Street headline writers rarely resist an opportunity to declare the outbreak of a new Cold War.
This week there was much chortling in British newspapers at the story of a Russian airline pilot who had been forced off a plane because he was too drunk to make the safety announcement.
These Russians, many will have giggled, they will never change.
It is a problem I have struggled with for the last two years. How to describe this huge, complex and often frightening country?
When bad things happen, like the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, there is a tendency for all of us to see it as a vast conspiracy: the work of KGB agents acting on orders straight from the Kremlin. In recent days I have had cause to look hard at that version of Russia and to ask again, what is the nature of this place?
The reason has been the cold-blooded murder of two brave young Russians on a Moscow street.
Stanislav Markelov was a 34-year-old human rights lawyer.

He campaigned for all sorts of people, but most notably for Chechens brutalized in the two wars Moscow has fought to prevent their tiny republic from breaking away.
The other was Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist who investigated Russia's growing neo-Nazi movement.
Their killings were cold and deliberate, straight from the set of a Hollywood gangster film.
In the mid-afternoon Stanislav and Anastasia were walking a short distance from the Kremlin.

A young man approached them, pulled a ski mask over his face and a silenced pistol from his pocket.
He shot Stanislav in the head killing him instantly.
As Anastasia tried to grab the killer he turned and shot her too. She survived for a few more hours before dying in hospital. Perhaps the most shocking thing about their deaths was the reaction in Russia. There was no huge public outcry. There were few banner headlines demanding justice.
Most shocking of all was the stony silence from the Kremlin.
Not a single word of condemnation came from President Dmitry Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimr Putin.
Russia collectively shrugged its shoulders and looked the other way.
I was angry.
And then I went to Anastasia Baburova's wake, and that made me more angry.
In Russia, wakes are held with an open coffin.
Anastasia's face had been made up to cover the wound that killed her. She looked doll-like amid the bouquets of flowers.
Her elderly parents shuffled forward to kiss their daughter goodbye.
As her father bent over the coffin and stroked her face, large tears rolled down his cheeks.
How could this have happened? Who is responsible? Why does nobody care?
These were the questions that raced through my head as I walked from the funeral hall.
Divided society
In the two weeks since, I have been asking people from Moscow to Kiev those same questions.
First I went to see Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire businessman who owns the paper Anastasia and Stanislav worked for. I asked him who he thought had ordered their killings.
In answer he described Russia as two countries, one within the other.
In one, live tens of millions of ordinary Russians, in the other live a tiny elite of officials, politicians and businessmen, who together have amassed vast fortunes running in to hundreds of billions.
They own private jets, houses across Europe, and yachts anchored on the French Riviera. "They will", he told me, "do anything to defend their wealth and power."
Next I went to see a man who once worked for the Russian state prosecutor's office. We met furtively in a forest on the edge of Moscow.
"Would the murders of Anastasia and Stanislav ever be solved?" I asked him.
"There is a very small chance," he said, "just a few percent."
"Why?"
"In these sorts of cases an order may come down from above not to investigate," he said.
"Why would they do that?" He looked at me as if I was a bit stupid.
"Because," he said, "that might reveal the whole chain of people, right up to the one who ordered it."
The impression that emerges is of a modern oligarchy.
One where the divisions between the state and private business have disappeared, where the security services are for hire and everybody has his price.
It is not a neo-Soviet state. There is no grand conspiracy. But that does not make it any less dangerous for those who stand in its way. And the paths of the murders of journalists leads to where ? The Kremlin of Putin and Medvedev ?

A Candle in Moscow

The spot in Moscow where reporter

Anastasiya Baburova was tragicly murdered in Vladimir Putin's lawless state.

Fatal Coat Check Beating

The ubiquitous coat-checks at Russian theaters and restaurants can be annoying. It's not that there's anything wrong with leaving your coat at the door. In fact, it's often rather convenient. It's the fact that one is REQUIRED to check one's coat in many venues that can be irksome. If it's a bit chilly in a restaurant, for example, and you'd like to keep a light jacket on, you're likely to be told that it's against the rules or that it's nekulturny. It's unclear exactly what about the coat-check at a local bar perturbed a man in the Karelian town of Segezha so severely that he beat the coat attendant to death. This depressing crime, the Karelian branch of the Investigative Committee notes, "is distinguished by the mercilessness and cynicism with which it was committed." On the night of Jan. 18, the coat attendant was on duty at the bar when he asked a patron to remove his jacket. The response from the customer was swift: He punched the employee in the face. A scuffle ensued, and the customer eventually calmed down and left the establishment — not for long, as it turned out. The man returned two hours later, knocked the attendant off his feet with a "crushing" blow to his skull. He then began stomping on the man's skull as employees and patrons looked on. There was no word on whether any of them tried to intervene. The victim, 38, was taken to the hospital with craniocerebral injuries and died two hours later. Tragically, he had a wife and children, who were "left without a breadwinner," investigators said. Police have arrested the suspect, 27, who had served time for violent crimes but was paroled last year. He is being charged with aggravated manslaughter. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Crime Watch Blog: Lover's Quarrels and Arson Attacks

Ugly times in Karelia. Just a few days after an upset bar patron stomped a coat-check attendant to death because of a no-jacket rule, a pensioner in the northern republic doused his female roommate and her mother with gasoline and burned them alive. The suspect, who was not named in the police report, got into a drunken argument with the 34-year-old woman and her 53-year-old mother. When such an argument turns violent, it is referred to in police jargon as a bytovukha. The woman was described only as his sozhitelnitsa, or "cohabitant," so it was unclear if she was the man's girlfriend, common-law wife or just a fellow resident in a communal apartment in the Karelian village of Gabselga. If they were romantically involved, there was a large age difference: He is 68. In any case, in the heat of the Jan. 23 argument, the suspect poured gasoline over the two women and set them aflame. The mother managed to flee and was hospitalized with burns. The daughter, sadly, died at the scene. The suspect has been arrested and is facing at least a murder charge and likely attempted murder as well. Curiously, this was just one of several incidents nationwide in the last week involving fire attacks and self-immolation. On Jan. 24, a 28-year-old man in the Arkhangelsk region set himself on fire after he lost his job and his wife left him, emergency rescue workers told the Regnum.ru web site. The regional branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry said he went into the courtyard, poured gasoline over himself and set himself alight. Luckily his neighbors noticed the flames and managed to extinguish them using the snow on the ground, Regnum.ru said. Meanwhile, a jealous boyfriend in the Sverdlovsk region set his apartment on fire, injuring his former lover, her daughter and her female friend. The dramatic events unfolded on the night of Jan. 23 in the city of Sukhoi Log. According to regional Interior Ministry spokesman Valery Gorelykh (whose last name derives from the word "burn"), 28-year-old Denis Bakhayev poured the gasoline over himself, his 36-year-old ex-girlfriend, her 15-year-old daughter (a schoolgirl) and her 40-year-old female friend and then "started a fire." Bakhayev died in the flames, while his three victims suffered serious burns. The motive for the crime was jealousy, according to police. A day before the attack, the ex-girlfriend filed a complaint with police that Bakhayev had physically abused her, Newsru.com reported. The regional Investigative Committee gives a slightly different version of events. Bakhayev was living with the woman, according to the committee's report, and when he came home on the night in question the two began to quarrel. Bakhayev began pouring a flammable liquid throughout the apartment and set the place on fire. Firefighters were called to the scene. The three victims came away with burns, while Bakhayev's body was discovered in a room that none of the flames reached. He had apparently died of smoke inhalation. An investigation is under way. Neighbors said Bakhayev had on several occasions argued loudly with the woman and had threatened to burn "property," according to the Investigative Committee.

Slain Moscow Reporter Buried In Sevastopol

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- Anastasiya Baburova, who chased after the assassin of human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov only to be killed by the same unidentified gunman, was buried in her native Ukraine on Jan. 26.

Baburova, 25, was a Moscow journalist with one of Russia’s few remaining independent newspapers, Novaya Gazeta.She and Markelov were slain less than a mile from the Kremlin, just after the lawyer held a Jan. 19 press conference to condemn the early release from prison of a Russian army colonel convicted of killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman in 2000.Baburova was from Sevastopol.Agence France Presse reported that several dozen mourners attended the funeral Mass held in St. Vladimir Orthodox Cathedral in the center of the Crimean port city before she was laid to rest in a cemetery on the city’s outskirts.Her mother, Larysa Baburova, told the French news agency that her daughter a year ago had complained that her work was too dangerous, saying: “Mum, I am not going to live long like this.”Novaya Gazeta – one of the few Russian newspapers that allow criticism of the Kremlin in its coverage – has been hit by tragedy several times, including in 2006, when star journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in Moscow.If these murders follow the disturbing Russian pattern, no killers will be found.

National Bolshevik Beaten To Death

An activist with the banned National Bolshevik Party was beaten to death in southeast Moscow, his face smashed almost beyond recognition, in an attack his friends believe may have been connected to his opposition politics. Anton Stradymov, 20, was discovered savagely beaten near the Vykhino metro station at around 4 a.m. on Jan. 14, National Bolshevik spokesman Alexander Averin said Tuesday. Stradymov's fellow activists only found out about his death Monday, when they were called in to identify the body, Averin said. The victim's skull had been split in several places and his "face disfigured almost beyond recognition," the National Bolsheviks said in a statement. Stradymov was still alive when the ambulance arrived but died shortly after arriving at the hospital, the statement said. His cell phone and other personal belongings were not stolen, indicating that robbery was not the motive, Averin said. With their ambitious and theatrical political stunts, the National Bolsheviks have angered Kremlin loyalists and been officially banned as an "extremist" organization. At the time of his death, Stradymov was under investigation for the National Bolsheviks' peaceful occupation of the Foreign Ministry's reception area in July, Roman Popkov, head of the group's Moscow branch, told the Kasparov.ru web site. Stradymov was free on condition that he not leave the city, Popkov said. "Anton had enemies: Those people whom he managed to annoy considerably during his six years as a National Bolshevik," the group's statement said. The group conceded, however, that it had no direct evidence of who might be behind the attack. Prosecutors have opened a murder investigation, Popkov said. A spokeswoman for the Moscow police's southeastern district branch said she could not comment on the attack. Prosecutors in Moscow's Kuzminki District, who are handling the investigation, could not be reached for comment. The deadly assault on Stradymov echoed a similar attack on Yury Chervochkin, head of the National Bolshevik branch in the Moscow region town of Serpukhov. Chervochkin, was beaten to death by unidentified assailants in Serpukhov in November 2007, two days before an opposition rally in Moscow. His friends and colleagues have accused local police of being behind the attack. No suspects have been detained in Chervochkin's death, and the investigation has been suspended indefinitely, investigators told The Moscow Times last month. Chervochkin's fiancee, National Bolshevik activist Anna Ploskonosova, has since received political asylum in Ukraine. She was facing charges in Russia of assaulting a police officer that she claims were fabricated

Hundreds Remember Slain Lawyer

Hundreds of people carrying flowers and candles visited the blood-smeared spot on Tuesday in central Moscow where lawyer Stanislav Markelov and reporter Anastasia Baburova were slain, many expressing indignation with tears in their eyes. Markelov, 34, was shot dead Monday afternoon on Ulitsa Prechistenka after holding a news conference decrying the early release of former army Colonel Yury Budanov, who was serving 10 years for killing a Chechen woman, Elza Kungayeva, 18, in 2000. Markelov, who died at the scene, had represented Kungayeva's family. Baburova, 25, a freelance reporter for the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was shot in the head while trying to shield Markelov from the unidentified gunman, newspaper editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said. She was rushed to the hospital but died without regaining consciousness. Human rights activists, lawyers, students and ordinary civilians came to the cordoned-off crime scene near Kropotskinskaya metro station on Tuesday, laying flowers and flickering candles on the now-frozen bloodstains. Pictures of the two victims surrounded the makeshift memorial, and several anti-Kremlin posters were placed on a wall along the sidewalk. The black plastic sheet that had covered Markelov's body a day earlier and the stained gloves of crime scene investigators remained close to the scene. At noon, a Russian Orthodox priest held a memorial service at the site, stressing in his speech that Markelov and Baburova had died on the same day that the church celebrates the Epiphany. "I am deeply shocked by the crime," said Public Chamber member Alla Gerbert, who visited the site. "This is not the first attack against Markelov. He was once beaten up by skinheads on the train because of his work. "I don't think the murder was a act of provocation, but Budanov has lots of supporters," she added. Budanov, convicted in July 2005 for the murder of Kungayeva, walked free from an Ulyanovsk prison on Thursday, sparking outrage among the victim's family and senior Chechen officials. Budanov admits to killing Kungayeva but says he thought she was a sniper and had acted in a fit of rage during an interrogation. A court last month ordered him freed early for good behavior and time served in pretrial detention. Among Markelov's other clients were Khimkinskaya Pravda editor Mikhail Beketov, an anti-corruption campaigner who was gravely beaten in Khimki, just north of Moscow, in unclear circumstances last year; Chechen Yana Neserkhoyeva, a Nord-Ost hostage accused of helping terrorists in 2002; and Zelimkhan Murdalov, a kidnapped Grozny resident assisted by Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who herself was shot dead in central Moscow in 2006. Baburova, a night journalism student at Moscow State University, wrote many critical articles about fascism and human rights abuses. She will be buried in her hometown of Sevastopol, Novaya Gazeta editor Sokolov said. Her relatives arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, and the newspaper will help them transport the body to Sevastopol, Sokolov said. An anonymous new post appeared on Baburova's LiveJournal blog on Tuesday, reading, "Thanks to everyone for their sincerely condolences." Funeral arrangements for Markelov have not been decided yet. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov awarded Markelov posthumously with a medal for his "merits to the Chechen republic," the Chechen government reported on its official web site on Tuesday. Hundreds of people rallied in Grozny on Tuesday, calling for Markelov's killers to be brought to justice. Kungayeva's family, who live in asylum in Norway, have been taken under the protection of the Norwegian police, RIA-Novosti reported. Budanov called the killing "a provocation" in a telephone interview published in Komsomolskaya Pravda on Tuesday. He also expressed his condolences to the families of the slain lawyer and reporter. The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on Tuesday under Crime Code Article 105 — the murder of two or more people — and Article 222 — the illegal acquisition and possession of guns. Investigators believe that the gunman was either a professional killer or an individual who disagreed with Markelov on his human rights views, the Investigative Committee said on its web site. They are considering the possibility that the reporter might have been purposely targeted by the gunman as well.

Woman stabs friend to death over soccer dispute

NIZHNY NOVGOROD - A young woman from Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga Region has been arrested on suspicion of killing her friend, who was a fan of a rival soccer club, local investigators said on Wednesday.
Investigators said CSKA Moscow fan Anna Gorbunova, 21, admitted stabbing her 26-year old friend four times in the back during a quarrel. The victim died at the scene.
"One woman is a fan of CSKA, the other is a fan of Spartak, that's why the conflict occurred," said the head of a local investigation department, Maxim Markeyev, although he added that other versions for the killing were also being considered.

Suspects detained over brutal murder of 5 people in Moscow Region

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Police have detained three suspects for the brutal murder of five homeless people in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow, a Moscow Region police source said on Thursday.
"Officers investigating the crime detained three unemployed residents from Zvenigorod on Wednesday on suspicion of the killing of two women and three men, whose bodies were discovered Tuesday," the source said.
The victims' bodies, believed to have been homeless, were found late on Tuesday by firefighters who had attended a fire in a nearby building. The victims had been killed approximately 48 hours earlier.