Police in Russia’s Urals have detained two teenagers on suspicion of torturing to death a 52-year-old former world champion weightlifter, media reports said.
The teens, identified only as Artem K, 18, and Nikolai B, 19, broke into the apartment of retired weightlifter Nikolai Gruzdyev in the Sverdlovsk district town of Beryozovsky while he was sleeping and discovered a lump of meat, some pickled cucumbers and a watch.
Investigators say that they were about to leave the apartment with their meager haul when they decided instead to wake Gruzdyev up and force him to reveal the whereabouts of his savings, first binding his hands and feet to the bed.
But when the former world, European and Soviet champion refused to comply, they hit him several times around the head with a piece of wood, killing him.
The teens were detained by police a short distance from the scene of the crime, changing out of their blood-splattered clothes.
Gruzdyev, who claimed his world and European junior weightlifting titles in 1976, was discovered by his mother the morning after the attack.
MOSCOW, February 18 (RIA Novosti)
