Most attacks on foreigners purely criminal: St Petersburg prosecutors
An overwhelming majority of attacks on foreigners last year in Saint Petersburg were not due to ethnic hatred, prosecutors in Russia's second largest city argued as concern about racist violence mounted in Russia.
More than 85 percent of crimes against foreigners were connected to theft and robbery, the city's prosecutor Sergei Zaitsev said late Friday, adding that of 1,079 such crimes only two were proved to be rooted in extremism, and in 18 more "an extremist motive could be supposed."
Prosecutors sent two cases of extremist groups to court, "but I cannot say that the city is flooded with such extremist societies," Zaitsev said.
However, informal groupings of youngsters were known to have "bitter antagonism so that one could expect trouble at any time," Zaitsev said, adding that prosecutors were working to make sure young people were not easily drawn into them, warning them and their parents of possible dangers.
Racist violence is seen as a mounting problem in Russia, particularly in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where skinhead gangs regularly harass or attack Africans, Asians and also non-Slavic residents with origins in the Caucasus or Central Asia.
More than 20 foreigners have come under attack this year, police say. Recent incidents in Saint Petersburg include a Senegalese shot dead by a man whose gun was decorated with a swastika, an Indian student wounded in a stabbing, and two Mongolian students and an Afghan beaten up.
AFP
