Last update - 11:50 14/01/2006
Russian jailed for synagogue attack in 2nd incident this week
By News Agencies and Haaretz Service
A 19-year-old Russian man was sentenced to five days in jail Saturday for an attack on a synagogue a day earlier in the southern city of Rostov-an-Don, in the second such incident in Russia in the past week.
The summary proceedings and sentencing came the morning after the man had forced his way into a synagogue and threatened several worshippers there with a broken bottle. Police arrived on the scene to overpower the attacker.
The accused man said he carried out his attack after seeing on television the reports about Wednesday's incident in a synagogue in Moscow by a 20-year-old who allegedly wounded eight worshippers with a knife.
On Friday, Russian authorities charged that attacker with racially-motivated attempted
murder and causing grievous bodily harm. Of the eight persons stabbed in the Moscow
synagogue, four were still in hospital.
The Moscow prosecutors' office said Alexander Koptsev, 20, had said during interrogation
that he had committed the crime "out of envy toward them (Jews), since they live better,"
and that he had been inspired by books and Internet sites. He also told investigators that
one of his motivations was "my desire to die," it said.
A million Jews live in Russia, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities,
and the Jewish community now is experiencing a revival after a wave of emigration
to Israel and other countries. Rising xenophobia in recent years has seen hundreds
of racially motivated attacks on targets including dark-skinned immigrants from
former Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains region.
Rights activists say hate groups are emboldened by authorities' mild approach
to prosecuting hate crimes and complain that literature from Nazis and
other extremists is sold freely.
The lower house of parliament's legislative committee has prepared a package of
bills to strengthen anti-extremist legislation, committee head Pavel Krasheninnikov
said Friday, according to the Interfax news agency.
Jewish leaders, however, have demanded that authorities push for better
enforcement of existing laws.
U.S. Ambassador William Burns visited the Moscow synagogue on Friday morning.
"The United States welcomes Russian government statements condemning
the attack and Prosecutor General (Vladimir) Ustinov's intent to oversee personally
the criminal case," Burns said in a statement at the synagogue.
"We urge the Russian authorities to use all legal means to prosecute the perpetrator
of this crime, and stop any such attacks in the future. It is crucially important to fight
extremism in all its forms," Burns said.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/670180.html
