MOSCOW, March 13 (Itar-Tass) – Moscow criminal police are confident that Pavel Dmitrichenko and two other suspects are involved in the attack on Bolshoi Theatre /GABT/ art director Sergei Filin.
"We are certain that the persons detained in the case over attack on Filin, are complicit in the crime. We have not found a single mismatch in the information they supplied as we were solving the crime," deputy chief of the city criminal police department Maxim Vanichkin said.
Earlier in the day, Filin, who is convalescing abroad, said he was not in conflict with /GABT leading soloist/ Pavel Dmitrichenko and that he felt "no enmity toward him."
Filin, 42, was attacked near his house Troitskaya Street in Moscow late in the evening of January 17. An unidentified man splashed acid in his face and fled the scene. Filin was hospitalized with serious face and eye burns. Pavel Dmitrichenko is the suspected mastermind.
In an interview to Russia-24 channel, Filin expressed the opinion that "it seems somebody has worked at it well; somebody was nudging toward it; because every meeting with Pavel Dmtrihcneko was a new threat to me; a new demonstration of enmity."
"I don't want to conceal it now, because this is what happened, and I don't want to talk about it anymore, I apologize for repeating that it's not a very pleasant talk for me," Filin underlined.
Bolshoi Theatre director general Anatoly Iksanov made it clear that Dmitrichenko would not be fired if the court did not prove his culpability.
He criticized the mass media coverage of the crime as too hasty.
"The Bolshoi Theatre employs 3,500 people who know both Sergei Filin and Pavel Dmitrichenko," Iksanov told Tass on Tuesday, in comments on the mass media reports that GABT staff were collecting signatures in an open letter to defend soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko, arrested on charges of masterminding the attack.
"For a majority of us, the incident is a terrible tragedy, a psychological injury. Many mass media outlets gave hasty opinions and conclusions. The actors' letter is a normal reaction to the situation. Some personnel wish to help their colleague who found himself behind the bars. It's customary in Russia to help people in prisons."
Reports said Pavel Dmitrichenko is ready to sign a plea bargain agreement.
"My client is ready for plea bargain, within the scope of his testimony," his lawyer Alexander Barkhanov told Tass.
Dmitrichenko admits "actual guilt in the commission of the crime against Filin," but categorically denies that he had wanted acid splashed on Filin or any other physical harm. It is confirmed by the testimony of suspected perpetrator of the crime Yuri Zarutsky. He insists that Dmitrichenko had never asked him to splash acid on Filin and that he had not paid any money to him for the attack, the lawyer said.
Moscow's Taganka court sanctioned the arrest of three suspects till April 18.
Filin officially denied the allegations that he did not plan to return to Russia. His colleagues are expecting him to resume work at the GABT in the summer.