Medvedev condemns 'passive police' as he fires top official
Source: Agencies |
January 27, 2011, Thursday
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IN the wake of the deadly bombing at Russia's busiest airport, President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday fired a top official of the country's transport police and lashed out at "passive" officers who guard the country's transport centers.
Medvedev announced the firing shortly before leaving for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he aims to reassure international business figures that Russia is a safe bet for their badly needed investment.
Monday's attack at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, generally believed to have been a suicide bombing, killed 35 people, including eight foreigners.
The dead include two Austrian citizens, two Tajiks and one each from Britain, Germany, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The bombing has demoralized many Russians, weary of years of separatist violence in Chechnya and other parts of the southern Caucasus region and of terrorist attacks attributed to the separatists, including last year's double suicide-bombing of the Moscow subway system in which 40 people were killed.
"It has already been happening for so many years and there is a feeling it will never end," said Inna Guliyants, who was attending a service in a Moscow cathedral as part of the capital's official day of mourning.
No claim of responsibility for the bombing has been made and investigators have not named suspects.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed retribution for the attack, but it remains unclear against whom.
That uncertainty appeared to thicken yesterday when Putin said "according to preliminary information, this terrorist act isn't related to the Chechen Republic."
Chechnya, however, is only one of several Russian republics with insurgents. In recent years, Dagestan has seen the most frequent separatist-connected bloodshed.
Medvedev did not specify the reasons for dismissing Major General Andrei Alexeyev, head of the transport police for the Russian region that includes Moscow. But he criticized transport police in general.
"The police that are at the large transport centers, in airports, at railway stations, take an absolutely passive position," he said.
Also yesterday, the chief of the transport police division at the airport and two officers were fired by Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev.
Medvedev initially criticized the airport's security forces.
But the airport authorities said that transport police were responsible for guarding access to the area where the blast occurred.
Medvedev announced the firing shortly before leaving for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he aims to reassure international business figures that Russia is a safe bet for their badly needed investment.
Monday's attack at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, generally believed to have been a suicide bombing, killed 35 people, including eight foreigners.
The dead include two Austrian citizens, two Tajiks and one each from Britain, Germany, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The bombing has demoralized many Russians, weary of years of separatist violence in Chechnya and other parts of the southern Caucasus region and of terrorist attacks attributed to the separatists, including last year's double suicide-bombing of the Moscow subway system in which 40 people were killed.
"It has already been happening for so many years and there is a feeling it will never end," said Inna Guliyants, who was attending a service in a Moscow cathedral as part of the capital's official day of mourning.
No claim of responsibility for the bombing has been made and investigators have not named suspects.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed retribution for the attack, but it remains unclear against whom.
That uncertainty appeared to thicken yesterday when Putin said "according to preliminary information, this terrorist act isn't related to the Chechen Republic."
Chechnya, however, is only one of several Russian republics with insurgents. In recent years, Dagestan has seen the most frequent separatist-connected bloodshed.
Medvedev did not specify the reasons for dismissing Major General Andrei Alexeyev, head of the transport police for the Russian region that includes Moscow. But he criticized transport police in general.
"The police that are at the large transport centers, in airports, at railway stations, take an absolutely passive position," he said.
Also yesterday, the chief of the transport police division at the airport and two officers were fired by Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev.
Medvedev initially criticized the airport's security forces.
But the airport authorities said that transport police were responsible for guarding access to the area where the blast occurred.
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