PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, August 10. /TASS/. Russia's richest politician, Igor Redkin, a member of Kamchatka's Legislative Assembly, has confessed to killing a man at a garbage dump in the village of Ozernovsky, Redkin's aide, Olga Struchenko, told TASS. She presented Redkin's official written statement.

"On August 2, there occurred a tragedy that I, Igor Redkin, was involved in despite myself. In the evening, I learned that a bear was roaming a garbage dump in the village of Ozernovsky. The animal was potentially harmful to local residents. I took a gun with the aim of scaring the bear away. I fired a shot at the bear in the dusk. After that, I learned that a local resident was wounded in the area at about the same time. He died in hospital later," the statement runs.

Redkin said that he had "made up his mind and was prepared to accept the punishment that the court will determine."

He recalled that for a long time he was a legislator from constituency №12.

"I have done a great deal for the area. I feel quite at home there. At the same time I believe it will be right to suspend my membership of the United Russia party and quit the election campaign to prevent gossip," the statement signed by the legislator himself says.

TASS has not obtained any official commentary from any of the law enforcement agencies so far. Kamchatka's Legislative Assembly has not received any requests to suspend Redkin's mandate.

The press-service of the Investigative Committee's Kamchatka regional office explained that a 55-year-old local resident was detained on the suspicion of involvement in the killing in Ozernovsky. The suspect's name was not disclosed.

"A restrictive measure will be decided on soon," the IC office said.

On August 6, the Investigative Committee's office in the Kamchatka Region opened a criminal case over the killing of a 30-year-old man. The investigators say that in the evening of August 2, a resident of Ozernovsky suffered a gunshot wound at a garbage dump near the village and later died in hospital.

Redkin's biography

Igor Redkin was born on March 22, 1966. He graduated from Suvorov cadet school and entered the Marshal of the Soviet Union K.K. Rokossovsky Higher Military Academy in Blagoveshchensk. For the past 20 years, he has been a businessman, operating in Kamchatka. Redkin is a co-owner of several major enterprises in the region and Russia's wealthiest politician. His officially declared income for the past three years is about 1.5 billion rubles.