Police search for Moscow synagogue attackers

Jul 12, 2011, 10:12 GMT

Moscow - Moscow police were Tuesday searching for four men who threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in a possible racist incident.

The attack may have been linked to prison sentences for members of a banned neo-Nazi group, but was 'an act of vandalism' and not inherently motivated by racism, a police statement said.

Shortly after midnight, the attackers hurled glass bottles filled with burning petrol at the wall of the Darkay Shalom synagogue, in a northern district of the Russian capital.

The building wall was scorched but otherwise suffered no damage. Police used surveillance videos to describe the suspects as four young men wearing hoods.

A court had on Monday sentenced five members of the National-Socialist Society (NSO), a banned Russian neo-Nazi group, to prison sentences for racism-motivated murders and attempted terrorist acts.

The Federation of Jewish Societies in Russia on Monday called the attack 'xenophobic' and 'in no way simple vandalism.'

Court proceedings against 13 members of the NSO have been in progress since February 2010.

Most have been accused of complicity in 28 murders committed during 2008 and of conspiring to attack government officials in order to advance Russian racial purity.

Almost all the victims were Africans, Asians or from the North Caucasus.

Violence against ethnic minorities is a recurring problem in Russia, particularly in larger cities with substantial populations of migrant workers and high unemployment.