Police chief sacked after bombing

PRESIDENT Dmitry Medvedev fired Moscow’s transport police chief yesterday and lashed out at “passive” officers who guard airports and rail stations after an airport suicide bombing killed 35 people.

Medvedev, often criticised as hesitant or ineffectual, appeared eager to assert his power after Monday’s attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, which also left 180 people wounded.

He announced the firing shortly before leaving for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he aims to reassure elite business leaders that Russia is a safe bet for their badly needed investment.

The attack, generally believed to have been a suicide bombing, was likely to unsettle investors not only because it underlines Russia’s persistent security problems but because eight foreigners were killed in the attack.

The dead include two Austrian citizens, two Tajiks and one person each from Britain, Germany, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The bombing also has demoralised many Russians, weary of years of separatist violence in Chechnya and other parts of the southern Caucasus region and of terrorist attacks attributed to the separatists, including last year’s double suicide-bombing of the Moscow subway system in which 40 people were killed.

Medvedev did not specify his reasons for dismissing Major General Andrei Alexeyev, head of the transport police for the region that includes Moscow. But he did criticise transport police in general.