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Suspected neo-Nazi guns down two in Far East FSB office, criminal case launched

The attacker was eliminated and his identity was established, a spokesperson for the FSB’s public relations center told TASS

MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Two persons died on Friday when an armed man, supposedly a member of neo-Nazi grouping, attacked the parlor of the regional branch of Russia’s FSB federal security service in the Far-Eastern city of Khabarovsk.

The attacker was eliminated and his identity was established, a spokesperson for the FSB’s public relations center told TASS.

"He is a native of the Khabarovsk territory born in 1999 and there is the evidence of his affiliation with a neo-Nazi grouping," the spokesperson said.

The attack occurred at 17:02 local time. The young man entered the facility and opened fire at the people there without crossing the zone of technical control in the parlor.

An FSB staff member and a visitor who had the passport of a CIS member-state died. One more visitor was wounded.

Officials at the public relations center told TASS demolitions experts confirmed the attacker did not have any explosive devices on him.

Prior to the attack on the FSB office, the young man killed a coach at a local rifle club and stole weapons there - a Saiga carbine and two handguns.

Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin has dispatched a team of highly expert investigators and detective to Khabarovsk to investigate the crime, Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko told TASS.

"The military investigations department of the Committee in the Eastern Military District has instituted a criminal case under Clause 2 of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code (‘The killing of two or more persons’), Clause 1 of Article 222 (‘Illegal turnover of weapons’) and Article 317 (‘An attempt on the life of a law enforcement official’)," she said.

Along with it, Petrenko cautioned the media against circulating unverified information.

"Since unverified information has been circulated in the internet and by some media outlets, which made references about details, versions and circumstances of the crimes to unknown sources, I’d like to ask them one more time to sway away from spreading unconfirmed data," she said.

In the meantime, the Russian National Guard is expected to hold off-schedule inspections in all the rifle clubs in the wake of the Friday attack on the FSB public communications office, the press service of the Guard told TASS.

"Pending the events in Khabarovsk, the territorial divisions of the National Guard have received an instruction to hold off-schedule inspections in the clubs of the organizations that use firearms in order to see whether they take sufficient measures to safeguard it," a spokesman said.

"Investigation of the criminal case is underway and before we study all the details of what happened it’s too premature to discuss a toughening of control over the circulation of weapons,".