Police are searching for suspects in the killing of a black man who was found lying facedown with his ears removed alongside train tracks in southern Moscow.
The Nigerian native, identified as 28-year-old Akintola Olufemi, was found dead on Tuesday afternoon by passers-by at the tracks leading to Paveletsky Station, near Nagorny Proyezd, the Interfax newswire reported. The man had been stabbed at least “22 times,” the agency reported, citing a law enforcement source.
Both the man’s ears had been cut off, Lifenews.ru reported.
Investigators are considering “several scenarios, a principle one being the involvement of radical nationalist movements,” the source told Interfax. “That scenario is particularly plausible considering the exceptional severity with which the crime was committed.”
Another explanation could be “payback by an ethnic Nigerian gang involved in the drug trade,” Interfax wrote. “Investigators are examining the deceased’s involvement in drug-trafficking in Moscow,” the source said.
“Many Nigerian immigrants fall into drug-trafficking and the sex trade in Moscow,” Lifenews.ru wrote.
If the murder were racially motivated, committed by extreme nationalists, the ears could have been taken as hunting trophies.
Early this month, a group of teenagers were found guilty of killing a “non-Slavic” man in the west Siberian city of Tomsk, after they chopped off one of his ears, the Investigative Committee said Nov. 7 in a statement.
The court ruled that the crime was “motivated by racial and ethnic hatred,” the statement said.
After severely beating the man, who had an “Asian appearance,” one of the perpetrators used a broken bottle to cut off his ear, investigators said. The victim died at the scene.
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