Armenian graves desecrated in Stavropol territory

The case was opened under Article 244 of the Criminal Code of Russia (desecration of dead bodies and their graves), Shpakovskii District Prosecutor Alexander Besedin told RIA Novosti on Wednesday. It was sent for investigation to law enforcement agencies.

On the night of 6 December, unidentified criminals desecrated and destroyed 14 graves of people with Armenian backgrounds in the cemetery in the Nadezhda village. The vandals upset and crashed several headstones, and some liquid, presumably an acid, was poured over several headstones, Mr Besedin said.

"We are considering a version of hooliganism and one of inciting interethnic hatred. It is not ruled out that the criminals crashed the graves on an ethnic hatred basis," said the prosecutor.

"In our district where people of different origins leave, there had been no such incidents previously. Vandalism in the cemetery is an exceptional event," Mr Besedin emphasised.

Eduard Kondian, executive director of the Stavropol branch of the Union of Russian Armenians, condemned the actions of the vandals and reminded that unidentified criminals had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the first-floor window of the Armenian Ethnic and Cultural Autonomy of the City of Piatigorsk on the night of 21 November this year.

"Such provocations will not achieve their objective and criminals will not be able to incite ethnic hatred in the Stavropol territory," Mr Kondian added.