Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Russian police detain suspect over Bolshoi acid attack

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained a suspect on Tuesday over an acid attack that nearly blinded the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet.

A brief Moscow police statement gave no other details and did not say who was being questioned. Until now, the police had said they had only questioned witnesses in the case.

Sergei Filin, artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet, speaks to journalists as he leaves a hospital in Moscow February 4, 2013. REUTERS/Vselovod Kutznestov

Life News, a Russian website with close ties to the police, quoted an unnamed source as saying the suspect had been seized in a police operation in Moscow's suburbs and was not an employee of the Bolshoi Theatre.

Sergei Filin, 42, was badly burned when a masked attacker threw sulphuric acid in his face outside his Moscow apartment as he returned home late on Jan 17.

Filin, who is having treatment in Germany to save his sight, has said he believes he knows who was behind the attack, which has highlighted bitter rivalries in the world of ballet and damaged the image of one of the world's great theatres.

(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)