MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Police found a cache of firearms they believed were used by a gunman in the apparently random killing of six people in the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod on Monday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
A gunman killed three people with a rifle at a hunting store before going out onto the streets and shooting dead another three outside the store, including a 45-year-old man and two teenage schoolgirls.
Sergei Pomazun, 31, the only suspect in the shooting attack, was detained near the city by police on Tuesday evening following a manhunt that lasted more than 24 hours and involved about 2,000 personnel.
“Today, while combing woodland where Pomazun was hiding, police and Interior Ministry cadets found a cache, covered by brushwood and containing two bags with personal belongings and firearms,” the source said. “Pomazun took those weapons from his father and the hunting store.”
The police said earlier Pomazun fled the scene of the shooting spree in his car and hid in a forest before being caught near a railroad station.
He was spotted by police officers while trying to flee the area in a freight train. He resisted arrest, injuring one police officer who sustained knife wounds to the head. The officer’s life is not in danger, the police said.
The suspect, who is currently under arrest, has refused to cooperate with the investigation and said he will testify and defend himself during the trial. He faces a life sentence if found guilty of multiple counts of murder.
Pomazun is to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether he is fit to stand trial, local investigators said on Wednesday.