Teacher Killed - 05.12.2007

Jewish Teacher Murdered in St. Petersburg

May 14	AP	Russian prosecutors say man confessed to killing
May 14	JTA	Suspect held in Russian Jew's murder
May 13	RIAN	Chief rabbi demands thorough murder probe
May 13	JTA	Jewish teacher murdered in Russia
May 12	YNetNews	Jew stabbed to death in Russia

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Associated Press - 05.14.2007

Russian prosecutors say man confessed to killing of teacher at Jewish school

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Prosecutors said Monday that a suspect has confessed to killing a teacher at a St. Petersburg Jewish school. The slaying has deepened concern about an upswing in hate attacks in Russia.

Investigators have determined that a 26-year-old man who was detained Sunday killed Dmitry Nikulinsky, whose body was found near his apartment Saturday with multiple stab wounds in the chest, neck and head, the city prosecutor's office said in a statement on its Web site.

According to the statement, the suspect — identified only as "K" — told investigators that he had decided to kill Nikulinsky after seeing him with a former girlfriend.

The killing sparked concern among Russian Jewish leaders, who said there were indications it may have been a hate crime. Nikulinsky, a 22-year-old university student, taught at a Jewish school in the city, and Russian media reports said he was from a Jewish family.

"In our view, various factors suggest it could have been a crime based on ethnic-bias motives," Timur Kireyev, spokesman for the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, told The Associated Press.

Kiriyev said he was skeptical about the jealousy motive, and suggested that St. Petersburg prosecutors have in the past downplayed hate elements in similar attacks.

"We prefer to wait until all the details of the investigation have been released," he said.

On Sunday, a top Russian rabbi said that "the information at this time creates serious suspicion that the crime was committed on ethnic grounds." Berel Lazar pointed to the multiple wounds and said nothing had been stolen from Nikulinsky.

In a statement, Lazar said it was clearly not a case of "hooliganism" — as authorities in Russia have often classified crimes that appear to have been motivated by prejudice. That classification is among the factors leading activists and minority communities to say the government is falling far short of promises to fight extremism.

Hate attacks "become possible where and when nationalists and extremists go unpunished," Lazar said in the statement.

Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and racism in recent years, with numerous of attacks on foreigners — many of them from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus — as well as members of ethnic minorities within Russia and Jews.

Several killings and other attacks have occurred in St. Petersburg. City authorities are highly sensitive about the former Imperial capital's associations with xenophobia and contend that racism is no worse here than elsewhere in Russia.

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RIA Novosti - 05.13.2007

Russia's chief rabbi demands thorough Jewish teacher murder probe

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) — Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar urged law-enforcement authorities Sunday to thoroughly investigate the murder of a Jewish school teacher in St. Petersburg. 

Dmitry Nikulinsky was killed in an apparently race-hate attack near his home Saturday morning in one of the districts of St. Petersburg. 

"We expect from the law-enforcement bodies to give their version of the murder. However, the available information generates serious suspicions that the murder was ethnically motivated. The victim received numerous knife wounds but nothing was stolen," Lazar said. 

Russian and foreign human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns over growing xenophobic sentiments in the country in recent years. 

People with non-Slavic features have repeatedly been attacked in apparently racially motivated crimes in Moscow, St. Petersburg and in many cases in the Central Russian city of Voronezh, home to many universities with foreign students. 

The Russian president highlighted the importance of fighting hate crime at a meeting with Federal Security Service officials earlier this year. Days later, the interior minister reported a 27% rise in the number of solved race attacks in the past year. 

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JTA: Global Jewish News - 05.14.2007

Suspect held in Russian Jew's murder

(JTA) — St. Petersburg police arrested a suspect in the murder of a Jewish schoolteacher that authorities said was motivated by jealousy. 

Dmitri Nikulinsky, 22, a teacher and biology student at a Chabad-run school, was stabbed to death Saturday in what some thought was an anti-Semitic attack. Berel Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, told Interfax on Sunday that "the information available for now breeds serious suspicions that the crime was ethnically motivated." 

On Monday, St. Petersburg police detained Georgiy Kulik for the crime, citing jealousy, not anti-Semitism, as the motive.

Nikulinsky's mother found him outside his home Saturday morning; he had been stabbed repeatedly in the neck. Police told community leaders that Kulik, 26, had seen Nikulinsky escorting home Kulik's ex-girlfriend the preceding evening, and that he had returned to kill Nikulinsky in a jealous rage. 

But community leaders are unconvinced. "I think it's still early to say that it's not an act of anti-Semitism or ethnically motivated violence," St. Petersburg's chief rabbi, Mendel Pevzner, told JTA on Monday. Police are scheduled to meet with St. Petersburg community leaders later Monday to discuss the case.

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JTA: Global Jewish News - 05.13.2007

Jewish teacher murdered in Russia

(JTA) — A Jewish day school teacher was murdered in St. Petersburg, in what some in the Jewish community believe to have been an ethnically motivated attack.

In an official statement on Sunday, the Jewish community of St.Petersburg said the details pertinent to the murder "were too scant to make any conclusions," yet community leaders pointed out the rise of xenophobia as a possible reason behind the crime.

Dmitri Nikulinsky, 22, a St. Petersburg native who taught biology at a Chabad-run school, was found heavily bleeding by his mother outside his apartment around 10 a.m. Saturday. Nikulinsky, a biology student in addition to his teaching role, had been stabbed in the neck.

"People are very upset and shocked," St. Petersburg's Chief Rabbi Mendel Pevzner told JTA.

As of Sunday, police had not informed the community of any leads in the ongoing investigation.

The community has no plans to increase security at its centers and has issued no statements recommending that its members take any greater precautions. "Until we have any further information about motives, we re not going to come out with such statements," Pevzner said.

In recent years, St. Petersburg has been known as a hotbed of nationalist and neo-Nazi activity in Russia, and several racially motivated murders were committed in the city, though Jews had not yet been among targets of these attacks. Those targeted were mainly foreign students from Asian and African countries and ethnic minorities from former Soviet republics.


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YNetNews - 05.12.2007

Jew stabbed to death in Russia

22 year-old St. Petersburg man found dead by mother minutes after stabbing; friends say murder 'was anti-Semitic'

By Yaakov Lappin 

A Russian Jew has been stabbed to death in northern St. Petersburg, members of the city's Jewish community told Ynetnews.

Dimitri Nikoulinsky, 22, was found dead with knife wounds to his throat by his mother minutes after the assault, his friend said.

Two members of the Jewish community said the attack was "exactly" like other lethal assaults carried out by neo-Nazi groups against foreign students and an anti-fascist activist, and are convinced that the attack was a hate-crime. 

The sources said the large number of stabbings by neo-Nazis caused them to feel unsafe, adding that they were too terrified to give their names.

"Today at ten in the morning, our friend and member of the Jewish community was assaulted by an unknown number of men. They left him with many throat knife wounds," a male friend of Nikoulinsky told Ynetnews by phone. 

"His mother found him dead minutes later on the stairs to his apartment," the source added.

Nikoulinsky was a student at St. Petersburg State University, and was in his final year of studying for an MA. He also taught in a local Beit Chabad Yeshiva.

Although he did not wear a kippa, Nikoulinsky did "not look Russian at all, and had a very Jewish look," a female employee of a Russian Jewish organization told Ynetnews.

"We are sure this was a hate crime because we have had a series of hate crimes of the same nature. The men who assaulted Dimitri took nothing from him," Nikoulinsky's friend said.

"I think this was a neo-Nazi crimes," he added.

The female source said Nikoulinsky was "very shy, and from a good Jewish family. There was no personal reason that anyone could have to kill him."

"Two years ago a man was killed in the same way in a central avenue of St. Petersburg," Nikoulinsky's friend said. "The reason he was killed was because he was an anti-fascist activist. After that, two foreign students from Vietnam were murdered, also in the same way. In addition, a girl from Tajikistan, who was 5 years-old, was murdered in an identical manner," the source added. 

Both sources said police had been informed, but added that they had lost trust in the police. "They are always working on these cases and nothing ever happens," one source said, adding: "We don't trust them at all." 

Nikoulinsky was described by his friend as a "very intelligent and open-minded person. He has never done any harm to anyone. He wasn't political. His only passion was teaching young children, which he did on a full-time basis."

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