Police in Russia's Volga city of Kazan have arrested a man on suspicion of the murder of two women whose bodies were found beneath a scrawled message demanding the release of three jailed members of the anti-Putin punk group Pussy Riot.
The two victims - a 76-year-old and her 38-year-old daughter - were discovered in their apartment on Wednesday. The slogan was written on a wall and is thought to have been daubed in the victims' blood, investigators said.
Kazan university teacher Igor Danilevsky, 38, was held on Thursday and confessed to carrying out the double murder, police said. He was an acquaintance of the younger of the victims.
Investigators said the suspected killer had written the words in an attempt to throw police off his trail.
Supporters of the group had speculated that the murders and the accompanying slogan may have been an attempt to discredit the group.
The Pussy Riot trio were jailed for two years each over a protest in Moscow's largest cathedral against the Orthodox Church's support for Vladimir Putin ahead of this March's presidential polls. The trial divided Russian society and sparked a wave of protests in support of the group.
