Russia jury clears 17 of killing Vietnamese student

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Oct 17 (Reuters) A jury in Russia's second city of St Petersburg today acquitted 17 young men charged with stabbing to death a Vietnamese student two years ago in a racially-motivated attack.

The trial was held behind closed doors in St Petersburg city court because most of the defendants were underage.

''They were all acquitted,'' the court's secretary said by telephone, adding that the defendants were freed at the courtroom.

She did not elaborate.

Interfax news agency said the jury decided the guilt of the 17 has not been properly proven.

Students, who witnessed the murder of 20-year-old Vu Anh Tuan in October 2004, have said that the group of young people who attacked him wore semi-military uniforms, leather jackets and boots, typical for skinheads.

In the past few years, a series of racially-motivated attacks against dark-skinned foreigners and nationals from ex-Soviet states took place across Russia, many of them in St Petersburg.

President Vladimir Putin has described as the growth of racism as a threat to national security and urged courts and law-enforcement agencies to step up struggle against the evil.

But human rights campaigners say Putin's latest campaign to tighten immigration rules and purge ethnic criminal gangs from markets, accompanied by massive expulsions of illegal immigrants, could fuel further racist sentiments.

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