MOSCOW, April 16 (Itar-Tass) – Moscow police said they have completed the investigation into the case over the attack on Bolshoi Theatre artistic director Sergei Filin.
"The probe into the case over attack on Sergei Filin has been completed. Extending the period of investigation and the petition to extend the suspects' arrest are explained by the necessity to receive medical documents from Germany for a forensic expert examination," a police official said.
The 42-year-old ballet art director 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.
Police arrested Bolshoi Theatre leading soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko as suspected mastermind, perpetrator Yuri Zarutsky who has a criminal record and driver Andrei Lipatov who had brought Zarutsky to the scene of crime. If convicted, they might face up to 12 years in jail /Article 111, Part 3 of Russia's penal code/.
The investigators said all the suspects had confessed to the crime.
GABT director general Anatoly Iksanov made it clear that Dmitrichenko would not be fired if the court did not prove his culpability. Bolshoi Theatre employees said in an open letter that Dmitrichenko could not have masterminded the crime.
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." The official version of the attack is Dmitrichenko's "hate toward Filin because of the latter's employment activity."
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.
On Tuesday, Moscow's Taganka court will consider extending the arrest of the three suspects.