MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – A suspect in the massacre of six people in the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod who was captured by police on Tuesday said he was innocent and refused to give a statement to investigators, the Investigative Committee said on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day a Belgorod district court ordered that the suspect, Sergei Pomazun, be detained for one month and 29 days under three statutes of the Russian Criminal Code, including murder and making an attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer.
Pomazun dismissed the charges against him, refused to cooperate with the investigation and said he will only testify and defend himself during the trial, the committee said in a statement.
While being questioned by police, who detained him after a two-day manhunt as he tried to flee the city, Pomazun did not deny having killed people but said “I did not shoot at the children!”
When police asked him what he was shooting at, he answered, “At hell!”
Pomazun, 31, who previously served four years in jail for theft, is the only suspect in the shooting attack in downtown Belgorod on Monday afternoon.
He is accused of killing three people with a rifle at a hunting store before going out onto the streets and killing three passersby outside the store: a 45-year-old man and two girls, aged 14 and 16, who were students of a nearby school.
The suspect later fled in the same vehicle in which he had arrived at the scene. He was detained on Tuesday evening by four police officers near Belgorod railway station.
Pomazun resisted arrest, injuring one police officer who sustained knife wounds to the head. The officer's life is not in danger, local police said, and the suspect sustained no injuries.
The suspect’s 55-year-old father told investigators his son had previously shown signs of violent and aggressive behavior toward his parents, and had been known to inflict injuries on them.
Pomazun is to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether he is fit to stand trial, local investigators said. He faces a life sentence if found guilty.
A two-day period of mourning was declared in Belgorod on Tuesday.
