MOSCOW, January 13 (RIA Novosti) - A police driver and his two acquaintances have been detained in Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg on Saturday on suspicion of murder and double robbery, the city’s police department said.

The attacks occurred early on Saturday.

"After spraying pepper spray in the faces of two men, the suspects snatched a mobile phone from one of them. The other man tried to run away, but he was caught and stabbed in the chest,” the St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region police department said in a statement.

The perpetrators took the victim’s two mobile phones fled the scene in a car. The man died in hospital an hour and a half later.

Several hours later, another man was robbed at knifepoint about 2 km away from the scene of the first attack.

Police detained suspects, aged between 19 and 22 years, later in the day.