Police have detained a Moscow region official suspected of organizing an attack on an activist who criticized a controversial road project, a police source said on Tuesday.
The official, whose name was not disclosed, is a member of the administration of Khimki, a town near Moscow.
Police have also detained three more men suspected of assaulting Konstantin Fetisov on November 4. The men beat Fetisov around the head with a baseball bat, leaving him in a coma.
Police said earlier they had detained "organizers and participants in the attack."
Fetisov "had no conflicts" with the Khimki administration, his wife, Marina Myagkova, told RIA Novosti.
Fetisov had protested against government plans to chop down part of a forest in Khimki to make way for a multi-lane motorway linking Moscow to St. Petersburg.
The project was given the go-ahead on December 14, three months after President Dmitry Medvedev put it on hold pending a full inquiry.
Activists want the road to be re-routed.
Fetisov was attacked two days before Oleg Kashin, a journalist with the influential Kommersant newspaper, was severely beaten by two men outside his home in Moscow. Kashin, who has been voted Journalist of the Year by Russian bloggers, had also criticized the project.
MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti)
