Russian detained over Internet Nazi murder video

MOSCOW, Aug 15 (Reuters) Russian police detained a man today for the suspected distribution over the Internet of a video showing the apparent murder of two men by neo-Nazis, Interfax reported, quoting an Interior Ministry source.

The man was held in the town of Maikop, capital of the Adygeya republic in southern Russia. The three-minute film purported to show the beheading of one man and the shooting of another as part of a neo-Nazi promotional video.

''According to preliminary information, he has been distributing this video over the Internet but he is not the author of this material,'' the Russian Interior Ministry source was quoted as saying by Interfax.

''We are checking whether he is a member of any banned or nationalist groups.'' It is still uncertain if the video material is authentic. It was distributed through Russian ultra-nationalist Web sites, though it was subsequently removed.

The grainy video, seen by Reuters, shows two men posing before a Nazi swastika flag and two other men being tied up and held captive before apparently being killed in turn.

REUTERS AE HT1325