Moscow police are searching for a murder witness who fled questioning by jumping out a fourth-floor window and then managed to escape again — from a hospital, with two broken legs.
The witness, identified as 32-year-old Alexander Kuliyev by the law-enforcement-friendly news site LifeNews.ru, has now been placed on a wanted list.
After phoning police from his home in the Kaluga region on Jan. 11 to report details in a cold case, Kuliyev had come to Moscow to speak with investigators about a murder that occurred in 2003.
But after apparently changing his mind, he jumped from a fourth-floor window of the police station, was hospitalized with two broken legs and major head injuries, and then somehow managed to flee from the hospital.
Police are conducting a check into the incident to determine how he managed to escape, LifeNews reported.
Kuliyev's reluctance to testify may stem from the sheer brutality of the crime he reported: More than 12 years ago, he said, he witnessed an acquaintance stab and decapitate a woman in a Moscow region forest, according to LifeNews.
The man whom Kuliyev identified to police in the 2003 cold case has been detained, the online news site Newsru.com said, citing the Interfax news agency. That man was 18 years old at the time of the murder.
