A Belarusian man on Wednesday was arrested for allegedly picking up a one-year-old Afghan boy and throwing him to the ground in the arrivals hall at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, inflicting spinal and cranial injuries, Britain’s The Daily Mirror newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, 31-year-old construction worker Vladimir Vitkov was arrested and confessed to “trying to murder” the child, who had arrived in Russia with his family after fleeing Iran due to its 12-day war with Israel.
“Yazdan, aged 18 months, is now fighting for his life with serious skull fractures and spinal injuries,” The Mirror read, adding that Vitkov was on board the same flight as the child and his mother.
Both The Mirror and British newspaper The Daily Mail reported that the boy suffered skull fractures and spinal injuries, with the latter reporting that the boy was “in a coma”.
Graphic CCTV showed Vitkov picking up the boy before “hurling him to the ground of Moscow airport’s arrivals hall”.
“The attacker — described as a ‘monster’ by a Russian official — apparently checks to see if anyone is watching and then suddenly grabs the child, throwing him hard on the floor in the arrivals section of Sheremetyevo airport,” The Mail reported.
According to The Mail, Vitkov reportedly flew to Moscow from Cyprus or Egypt and was rapidly taken into custody after the incident, amid suspicions he was under the influence of drugs.
The Mirror reported that Vitkov had been fired from a nuclear power plant construction job in Egypt after failing a spot check for drugs and alcohol and was returning home via Moscow, citing a friend of the suspect’s.
“He (Vitkov) ‘confessed’ when a police interrogator asked: ‘Explain what you did’,” The Mirror reported. Vitkov responded with, “I attempted to murder a child.”
The Mail reported that police are examining whether there was a racist or other motivation for the act against the child. However, The Mirror said that when his motive was questioned, he replied that he did not know because he was “under the influence of drugs”.
“Reports said cannabis had been found in his possession, and there were traces of the drug in his blood. Mash news outlet reported today that he had drunk three bottles of whisky and obtained cannabis in Cairo before the incident,” The Mirror reported.
Moscow region children’s ombudswoman Ksenia Mishonova was quoted as saying, “A drug-addled monster grabbed a toddler in the arrivals hall and threw him on the floor with all his might. All this is incredibly difficult to bear.
“I hope the detained monster will receive the full severity of the law. I wish the child a speedy recovery. May the parents have the strength to survive this.”
The Mirror quoted the ombudswoman as saying she hopes Vitkov receives “hard labour until he is feeble with old age”.
“I am always very, very careful, but here I no longer have the strength not to say simply [this was] a stoned drug addict, a monster,” she said after seeing the boy in hospital.“
The Iranian Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, condemned the incident as “completely inhuman”, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
“A video has been circulated showing a child being brutally slammed to the ground. Some have claimed the attacker is Jewish, but I cannot confirm that,” Jalali told Tasnim.
The ambassador added that Tehran immediately contacted Russian authorities to confirm the victim’s nationality.
“It was initially reported that the child was Iranian,” Jalali said. “Russian Foreign Ministry colleagues told us that the file is officially listed under Afghanistan. The innocent child, currently in a coma, is apparently from an Afghan family.”