St Petersburg court acquits 17 in killing of Vietnamese student

dpa German Press Agency
Published: Tuesday October 17, 2006

Moscow- A St Petersburg jury Tuesday acquitted 17 young men of the 2004 killing of a Vietnamese student, reflecting the racial tension that has gripped Russia, and especially its former imperial capital, in recent years. Eight of the teenage defendants were acquitted of all charges, and nine were found guilty on six other, separate charges, all involving attacks on foreigners, Interfax reported.

Attacks on Palestinian and Chinese nationals were said to be racially motivated. The beatings of a Ghanaian and Azeri, however, were pronounced as mere "street brawls."

The court will determine their sentencing on Thursday, the news agency reported.

The Vietnamese student, Vu An Tudan, 20, was attacked by a large group of young people on the night of October 13, 2004, after leaving a friend's birthday party. The first-year student was stabbed 37 times and died on the street in the city's Petrograd neighbourhood from loss of blood.

At least 20 foreign citizens have been killed in racially- motivated crimes in Russia this year, human rights watchdog Sova has said.

The latest such killing came last month when Indian medical student Nitesh Kumar Singh, 27, was stabbed to death outside a St Petersburg hostel. St Petersburg has witnessed more racially motivated killings than any other Russian city.

The Moscow Human Rights Bureau counted 25 such killings in 2005.

But the deaths of foreigners and ethnic minorities are rarely recognized as hate crimes in courts of law, with judges and juries often calling racially-motivated murders "hooliganism."

In July, a St Petersburg court acquitted four people in the killing of Congolese student Roland Epassak.

In March, seven of eight defendants in the murder of nine-year-old ethnic Tajik Khursheda Sultonova, a St. Petersburg native, were found guilty of hooliganism. The eighth was fully acquitted.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency