Russian student held over right-wing extremist "execution" video

Aug 15, 2007, 16:47 GMT

Moscow - A Russian student has been arrested for posting on the internet a video purporting to show the execution of two men by masked killers in front of a swastika, Interfax news agency said Wednesday.

The student faces a charge of fomenting racial hatred, the agency said. Investigators were probing whether the executions, apparently carried out by right-wing extremists, were genuine.

'Should there be grounds for suspecting murder, we will be opening a full investigation,' said local state prosecutor Alexander Belousov in the southern Russian republic of Adygeya.

The video, almost three minutes long, apparently depicted a Tadjik and a native of the Russian Caucasian republic of Dagestan being killed while bound.

The video carried a claim of execution by the Russian National Socialist Party, along with a demand for the 'deportation of all Caucasians and central Asians from Russian territory'.

The student was reported to have claimed he had received the video by email. Civil rights groups demanded urgent action in investigating the case.

'Finding out who is behind this is a matter of honour for our justice authorities,' said Ludmilla Alexejeva of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

Human rights group say there are some 70,000 skinheads in Russia, where since the beginning of the year there have been nationalist extremist attacks on over 300 people, 36 of them murdered - mostly Caucasians or people from Central Asia.