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Government officials to be questioned over attack on Russian forest activist

© RIA Novosti . Dmitri VinogradovKonstantin Fetisov
Konstantin Fetisov - Sputnik International
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A government official will be questioned over an attack on an environmental activist who opposed a controversial road building project near Moscow, a police source said on Friday.

A government official will be questioned over an attack on an environmental activist who opposed a controversial road building project near Moscow, a police source said on Friday.

On Saturday, police will interrogate Vladimir Strelchenko, the mayor of Khimki, a town on the edge of Moscow, over his alleged involvement in the attack on Konstantin Fetisov, who was set upon by men with a baseball bat last November.

Deputy Mayor Alexei Valov will go in for an interview later on Friday.

Last month, police arrested four suspects, including a Khimki administration official, who is suspected of organizing the assault.

Fetisov had protested against government plans to chop down part of a mature forest near Khimki to make way for a multi-lane motorway linking Moscow to St. Petersburg.

The project was given the go-ahead on December 14, three months after President Dmitry Medvedev put it on hold pending a full inquiry.

Activists want the road to be re-routed.

Fetisov was attacked two days before Oleg Kashin, a journalist with the influential Kommersant daily, was severely beaten by two men outside his home in Moscow. Kashin had also criticized the project.

 

MOSCOW, January 14 (RIA Novosti)

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