African Student Stabbed in Skinhead Attack
By Ali Nassor
Special to The St. Petersburg Times
Doctors treating a Ghanaian student after he was stabbed 36 times by a suspected neo-Nazi gang on Wednesday said Monday that his life was not in danger after he underwent multiple operations including brain surgery, according to Aliou Tunkara, president of St. Petersburg’s African Union. “They attacked to kill, but quite against their expectations, the victim survived,” said Tunkara, who linked the timing of the attack to Wedneday’s UEFA Cup soccer match played in St. Petersburg between home team FC Zenit St. Petersburg and Olympique Marseille of France. “It’s not a coincidence at all since every time Zenit plays a team involving blacks, racial attacks in the stadium turn into violence on the streets,” he said. A group of suspected white supremacists attacked Justice Adjei, 20, a second-year student of the St. Petersburg State University of Finance and Economics at around 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday on Novosmolenskaya embankment on Vasilyevsky Island, on the night of the match. Marseille defender Roland Zubar complained of racist chants by some Zenit fans directed at him and black teammates Charles Kabore and Andre Ayew during the match at Petrovsky Stadium. “They threw a banana at us and made monkey sounds,” Zubar told reporters after the match. UEFA has opened an investigation into the racial abuse and will examine the matter at its meeting on Thursday. The attack on Adjei was similar to that on Maira Mkama, 23, an African-Russian student who was hospitalized with stab wounds after Zenit won the Russian championship in November. Although Mkama and a friend described the assailants as skinheads, prosecutors fell short of qualifying the incident as a racially motivated crime. Nobody has been charged in the case. Lampser Samba, a Senegalese student at the St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications was shot dead in April 2006, a day after Zenit had played FC Seville. The police are compiling a case against five murder suspects. Adjei’s friend and compatriot, a fellow student who asked to remain anonymous because he now fears for his life, said Wednesday’s attack appeared to have been premeditated. “Justice was attacked on his way home from a visit to a Russian friend by people who appeared to have been on a manhunt,” the student said. Meanwhile, Adjei described the attack from his hospital bed on Sunday. “It happened so fast that I couldn’t make out if there were five or six skinheads, but there was an old lady walking a dog nearby, and a young lady walking in front of me ran away,” he said. “One skinhead stood watching from a distance as if to raise the alarm in case someone else appeared on the scene.” “They ran away as the old lady yelled, and I managed to call a friend who appeared after a little while and who together with the old lady called the police and the ambulance,” Adjei added. “The police showed up shortly afterwards, but it looked like it was a harassment when they focused their attention on my documents instead of my condition,” Adjei said, adding that at that moment he was on the edge of consciousness due to loss of bood. “The ambulance arrived about 40 minutes later.” Pending the investigation into the case, the police have warned the elderly woman against talking to the press because, as a witness, her life could also be in danger. Although a hate motive has not been ruled out, prosecutors have filed charges of attempted murder in connection with the incident. Human rights activists say it is typical of St. Petersburg’s neo-Nazis to go on the rampage on the days approaching Adolf Hitler’s birthday on April 20, and that such attacks are a part of their rituals. The St. Petersburg Foreign Students Union placed an announcement on its web site Thursday urging students to be especially vigilant this month.
|
Ïåðåâåñòè íà ðóññêèé
Print this article
Issues Archive
Issue in PDF
Issue in RSS