Attackers on policemen in Krasnodar to be checked for their connections with radical elements
KRASNODAR. Aug 31 (Interfax) - The Federal Security Service (FSB) is inquiring whether suspects in an attack on policemen in Krasnodar have connections with radical nationalist groups, the press service of the Russian Federal Security Service directorate for the Krasnodar Territory told Interfax on Thursday.
"Three detainees on suspicion of an attempt on the life of policemen, use of violence against one of them and a murder attempt are being checked for connections with one of rightist radical groups. One of them is known to have been previously convicted of the creation of an extremist group," a press officer said.
As reported, traffic police officers stopped Nikita Medvedev's Toyota Camry, which was also carrying two passengers, namely Dmitry Karachkin and Vladislav Gmyrya along with the driver, at a stationary post in Krasnodar in the afternoon on August 28.
Medvedev hit an officer checking his documents, went back to the car for a non-lethal handgun, and opened fire on the police.
The suspect also fired several shots on the street and wounded a young man who tried to stop him.
One of Toyota's passengers Karachkin got out from the car and escaped from the scene. Another passenger Gmyrya also tried to run away but was detained. Medvedev escaped by car. Fleeing from the chasing party, he stopped and opened fire on a traffic police patrol car.
Two days later, overnight into Wednesday Medvedev was detained in the Kopansky village in a Krasnodar suburb. Karachkin was detained on the same day.
Gmyrya earlier led the Pitbull nationalist group, but the Krasnodar Sovetsky District Court sentenced to six years in a high-security penitentiary in 2010.
The Pitbull group has been a permanent criminal group, which involved football fans and students from Krasnodar educational establishments, beginning in 2007. They have brutally beaten people of non-Slavic appearance. At the same time, they put on medical masks to prevent accidental video cameras from recording them.