Investigators in southern Siberia are looking into four children accused of killing a man by dousing him with flammable liquids and setting him on fire, the Russian Investigative Committee said.
The children, ranging in age from 7 to 13, are accused of attacking a man they spotted sleeping at an outdoor market, the Investigative Committee branch of the Kurgan region said in a statement Thursday.
One of the alleged attackers — a 12-year-old girl — is accused of taking a bottle of "alcohol-containing liquid" from the man, pouring it over his clothes, and setting the victim on fire.
Other people who were at the scene extinguished the flames and called an ambulance, but the man died in the hospital from burns to his head, body and respiratory tract, the Investigative Committee said.
Under Russian law, only suspects who had reached 14 years of age at the time of committing a major offense, such as murder, can be tried as adults.