Dancer says acid not his idea
MOSCOW — Burning the Bolshoi Ballet artistic director’s face with acid was not part of the plan, the top dancer arrested on suspicion of masterminding the attack told a Russian court Thursday.
Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, admitted organizing the assault but said that Yuri Zarutski, the man he allegedly paid about $1,600 to attack Sergei Filin, was supposed to only hit him. Dousing Filin’s face with sulfuric acid, which caused severe burns and damaged his eyes, was Zarutski’s idea, Dmitrichenko told the court.
“He always offered, ’Let me go there and solve this question, let me hit him over the head’; I agreed. But after I heard what happened to him, I was in shock,” an exhausted-looking Dmitrichenko said from a cage in a Moscow courtroom during his arraignment.
Dmitrichenko said he met Zarutski in Stupino, a provincial town in the Moscow region and the site of summer cottages used by Bolshoi Ballet members. The dancer, whose roles included the Evil Genius in “Swan Lake” and Russia’s brutal ruler Ivan the Terrible in the recent “Ivan Grozny,” regularly lent the unemployed Zarutski small amounts of money. In exchange, Zarutski offered to “solve any problems,” Dmitrichenko said.
Zarutski, 35, and his lawyer declined to comment on the allegation that the acid attack was Zarutski’s idea.
Dmitrichenko did not give specific reasons for wanting to attack Filin, but mentioned corruption at the theater. Russian news reports and a source at the theater suggested that Filin had angered Dmitrichenko by not giving his girlfriend, Anzhelina Vorontsova, the roles of Odette and Odile in “Swan Lake.”
However, several Bolshoi performers who attended Thursday’s arraignment said they did not believe that Dmitrichenko and Vorontsova had anything to do with the attack. They did not find the results of the investigation convincing, they said, and speculated that Dmitrichenko was forced into confessing.
“We all saw how he looked, his eyes,” said Ro- man Denisov, a Bolshoi Theater orchestra musician, referring to Dmitrichenko’s pale face and the dark circles under his eyes. “It’s terrifying to think of what he has lived through.”
A masked assailant threw concentrated sulfuric acid at Filin, 42, on the night of Jan. 17 near his Moscow apartment building. Dmitrichenko, Zarutski and driver Andrei Lipatov were detained Tuesday and, authorities say, confessed Wednesday
Police said Dmitrichenko hired Zarutski, who purchased the acid in an auto parts store, to attack Filin. They said Zarutski asked Lipatov, who says he had no knowledge of the assault, to drive him to and from the crime scene.
All three suspects were denied bail and were ordered held until at least April 18 as the investigation continues.