Murder of two students in Stavropol: three versions

The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Leninskiy District of Stavropol has initiated a criminal case on the fact of murdering two students in the city of Stavropol. Victor Ignatiev, head of the press service of the Chief Department of Internal Affairs (GUVD) of Stavropol Territory, has informed today the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the bodies of two students (Dmitri Blokhin and Pavel Chadin) were found at 00:30 a.m. Moscow time on June 3. He also noted that the basic version examined by the investigation is a murder with the aim of robbery - abstraction of victims' mobile phones.

Vladimir Nesterov, leader of the Union of Slavic NGOs of Stavropol Territory, does not exclude that the students' murder is a revenge for assassination of Gelani Ataev during a mass fight: "Back on May 25 certain people called me up and said that rumours were circulating among Chechens that they would kill twenty Russians in vengeance for one murdered Chechen. I met representatives of the Chechen Diaspora, and they had assured me that everything was under their control. But at midnight on June 2-3 it was nine days after Ataev's murder - under an Islamic custom a blood feud starts in nine days. And at half past twelve two guys were killed!" According to Mr. Nesterov, the assassinated Victor Chadin was a one-group student with Gelani Ataev who was murdered on May 24. At night on June 3 they were seeing off a girl home, and on the way back they were attacked.

Gelani Ataev's father has explained today by telephone to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent: "According to eyewitnesses, the two Stavropol students were gambling at a casino and could not divide their gain. When they left the casino, one of them struck the other with a knife. The latter fell down, and one of his friends then run out of the premise, snatched out his knife and struck his friend's murderer."