Cop Charged in Rampage

Moscow police officer Denis Yevsyukov has been charged with multiple homicide for his rampage in a local supermarket last week in which he shot nine people, killing three, the Investigative Committee said Tuesday.

Authorities say Yevsyukov, head of a police precinct in southern Moscow, shot dead a cab driver and then walked into a supermarket where he shot eight more people, killing two. The investigation is continuing, the Investigative Committee said in a statement

If convicted, Yevsyukov faces up to life in prison. (MT)

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Germans Hold Komi Man

German authorities have detained a Russian businessman on suspicion of large-scale tax evasion in Russia, Interfax reported Tuesday.

Acting on an international arrest warrant, the German branch of Interpol detained Komi republic businessman Sergei Shpigotsky on Sunday in the town of Offenburg, the report said.

Shpigotsky is wanted in Russia for purportedly evading 400 million rubles ($12.2 million) in taxes.

Russian authorities say he committed the crime as the head of the company Instroigaz LTD, which is based in the Komi republic town of Ukhta and develops gas pipelines. (MT)

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Corruption on the Rise

Policemen, teachers and doctors are the country's top bribe takers, ahead of bureaucrats, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said in a new report, Vedomosti reported Tuesday.

Prosecutors sent 28,451 corruption cases to court last year, up 5.2 percent from 2007, Chaika said in the report, which is to be presented to the Federation Council on May 13.

"Corruption has been escalating over the last 10 years at every level of legal and government administration," Chaika said in the report, Vedomosti reported.

Eighty percent of those charged with bribery took less than 30,000 rubles ($900), the report said. (MT)

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Peat Fires Start Early

Peat bog fires in the Moscow region have started several months earlier than expected, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday, Itar-Tass reported.

Smoke from the fires commonly drifts into Moscow in the summer months, sometimes creating a dense, acrid haze in the city.

Shoigu urged his subordinates to take immediate steps to extinguish the fires to prevent the bogs from smoldering this summer. (MT)

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Man Learns He Is a Prisoner

A Chelyabinsk man trying to register his gun discovered to his surprise that he was officially registered as serving a prison term, regional prosecutors said Tuesday.

The man, whose name was not given, went to police to get a license for his gun and was informed that he had been convicted of vehicular homicide in 2006 and was listed as serving time in prison, prosecutors said.

Investigators subsequently determined that a distant relative of the man was using the man's passport and driver's license during the trial.

A Chelyabinsk court has expunged the conviction from the man's record, prosecutors said. (MT)

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