Man who attacked people in Moscow church says didn't plan crime, 'got up on wrong side of bed'
MOSCOW. Feb 17 (Interfax) - A man who wounded two people in a Moscow church on Sunday did not choose the crime scene in advance, the detainee said in a video of his questioning published on the website of the Russian Interior Ministry on Monday.
"I had gotten up on the wrong side of bed. I woke up and I was feeling [....] not very joyful. I didn't choose the church, I walked into one that was nearby," the man said.
The man said he had not made any preparations for the crime. He said he had bought the knife seized from the crime scene in December 2019 and had found the gloves "on the go."
The detainee said he lives in a hostel near the Partizanskaya metro station and had been going to work on the day the crime was committed.
The man said he had drunk beer the day before and sometimes uses narcotics. "I use marijuana sometimes," he said.
The man could not say whether he considered himself sane. "Maybe there's something up with my mind, I don't know. I'm not a doctor," he said.
Russian Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk told Interfax on Sunday that a criminal case had been opened based on the attack on citizens in a church in the Bakuninskaya Street against a man born in 1993 based on the articles dealing with hooliganism and battery.
According to earlier reports, the man entered the altar of the Church of Nicholas the Wonderworker and stabbed two men. People in the church prevented the man from escaping.
The police who arrived at the scene detained the suspect, a 26-year-old resident of Lipetsk, who had no criminal record. A knife, gloves, and a package containing a plant-based substance were seized from him. Tests showed that the substance was marijuana.
The criminal case is being investigated by officials from the Investigative Unit of the Investigative Directorate of the interior affairs department for the Central Administrative District of the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Moscow, Volk said.
"Investigative actions are being carried out and operational search activities are being conducted. The man has been detained in accordance with Article 91 of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure. The investigators plan to file a motion with a court for him to be taken into custody," she said.