Killers scrawl “free pussy riot” in victims blood on wall
The
bodies of a 76-year-old mother and her 38-year-old daughter were found
in their Kazan apartment near a wall daubed with the words “Free Pussy
Riot,” apparently in the victims’ own blood, investigators said
Thursday, the Moscow Times reported.
A lawyer for three Pussy Riot punk rockers sentenced on Aug. 17 to two years in prison for singing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral called the English-language message “a dirty provocation.”
A senior Russian Orthodox official urged international celebrities like Madonna and Paul McCartney to withdraw their support for Pussy Riot to prevent further killings, while a lawyer for Russian Orthodox believers who sued Pussy Riot for the performance blamed the punk group for the deaths.
The bodies of the two women were found with multiple stab wounds in Tatarstan’s capital on Wednesday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Investigators believe the killings of the women, who were not identified, took place sometime between Aug. 24 and 26.
While a Pussy Riot supporter might have been involved, all signs point to a robbery, including the “total mess” in the apartment, said Andrei Sheptitsky, a spokesman for regional investigators.
The killer might have written the message under the influence of alcohol or drugs or “as a cover-up,” Sheptitsky said by telephone. Alternatively, he said, the killer might have been “simply insane.”
Investigators refused to say whether they had any suspects.
Decrying the bloody message as a provocation, Pussy Riot lawyer Nikolai Polozov said the group’s supporters were “mostly people who stick to legal ways of protest,” Interfax reported. On Twitter, he warned journalists against calling the killers Pussy Riot supporters.
But a headline Thursday afternoon on state-run news website Vesti.ru seemed to do just that, reading, “People Have Begun to Kill for Pussy Riot.”
Mikhail Kuznetsov, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the trial, said that if the musicians had been convicted of inciting religious hatred, “tragedies like the one in Kazan … would have been avoided,” Interfax reported. The defendants were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
Kuznetsov speculated that the masterminds of the February performance in Christ the Savior Cathedral might have been involved in the Kazan killings.
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com
A lawyer for three Pussy Riot punk rockers sentenced on Aug. 17 to two years in prison for singing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral called the English-language message “a dirty provocation.”
A senior Russian Orthodox official urged international celebrities like Madonna and Paul McCartney to withdraw their support for Pussy Riot to prevent further killings, while a lawyer for Russian Orthodox believers who sued Pussy Riot for the performance blamed the punk group for the deaths.
The bodies of the two women were found with multiple stab wounds in Tatarstan’s capital on Wednesday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Investigators believe the killings of the women, who were not identified, took place sometime between Aug. 24 and 26.
While a Pussy Riot supporter might have been involved, all signs point to a robbery, including the “total mess” in the apartment, said Andrei Sheptitsky, a spokesman for regional investigators.
The killer might have written the message under the influence of alcohol or drugs or “as a cover-up,” Sheptitsky said by telephone. Alternatively, he said, the killer might have been “simply insane.”
Investigators refused to say whether they had any suspects.
Decrying the bloody message as a provocation, Pussy Riot lawyer Nikolai Polozov said the group’s supporters were “mostly people who stick to legal ways of protest,” Interfax reported. On Twitter, he warned journalists against calling the killers Pussy Riot supporters.
But a headline Thursday afternoon on state-run news website Vesti.ru seemed to do just that, reading, “People Have Begun to Kill for Pussy Riot.”
Mikhail Kuznetsov, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in the trial, said that if the musicians had been convicted of inciting religious hatred, “tragedies like the one in Kazan … would have been avoided,” Interfax reported. The defendants were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
Kuznetsov speculated that the masterminds of the February performance in Christ the Savior Cathedral might have been involved in the Kazan killings.
Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com
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