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Russia launches manhunt for police killers
09 Jun 2010 20:48:13 GMT
<!-- 09 Jun 2010 20:48:13 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove --> Source: Reuters
* Major operation launched to find armed gang *
Gang wanted for attacks on policemen, motive unclear VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, June 9 (Reuters) -
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, June 9 (Reuters) - More than 300 police launched a manhunt on Wednesday in Russia's Far East for an armed gang they say are behind a series of attacks on officers. Investigators believe the five wanted men are responsible for the May 27 fatal shooting of a policeman in a village in the Primorsky Krai region on the Pacific Ocean, two more attacks that injured three policemen and the burning of a police station in other towns.
A Reuters correspondent saw scores of policemen clad in bullet-proof vests and helmets patrolling the roads leading out of the capital Vladivostok on Wednesday, while helicopters buzzed overhead. Apart from in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is battling an Islamist insurgency in Chechnya, site of two separatist wars with Moscow since the mid-1990s, nearby Dagestan and Ingushetia, attacks on police are extremely rare.
Some media outlets have called the events the "Ingushetisation" of the Far East. The gang's motives for violence remain unclear, though they hint at anger at corruption by police. Local media have widely published the men's pictures and have appealed to locals to aid police by being vigilant. They are aged between 18 and 32.
Media have also reported that a veteran paratrooper who served in Chechnya wars, 32-year-old Roman Muromtsev, is the band's commander. In December, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a 20 percent reduction in the 1.4 million-strong Interior Ministry, which handles the police, after a string of violence and corruption-fuelled scandals. (Writing by Ludmila Danilova, Amie Ferris-Rotman and Denis Dyomkin; Editing by Charles Dick)
