MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax) - Three persons suspected of killing police officers have been neutralized in Kabardino-Balkaria, in Russia's North Caucasus, Russian Interior Ministry spokesperson Irina Volk told Interfax on Friday.
"A VAZ-2110 car listed as stolen was found in the village of Yanikoi of the Chegem district at around 9:00 p.m. on October 13 as search operations were conducted following an attempt on the life of police officers of Kabardino-Balkaria's law enforcement agencies. As an attempt was made to stop this transport vehicle, the persons sitting in it put up armed resistance and were neutralized by return fire," Volk said.
"The preliminary information available indicates that those inside the car included three offenders, among them the leader of the gang suspected of attacking policemen from the Russian Interior Ministry's Prokhladnensky inter-municipal department. Automatic small arms, grenades and ammunition were found at the site of the shootout," she said.
Volk said that the car's owner had alerted the police a day earlier that four unknown persons threatening him with an item resembling a pistol had seized his car and fled.
Investigators continued to work at the scene of the incident on Friday morning.
Traffic police officers Albert Kerimov and Vladimir Mishkov were killed by gunmen while on duty in Kabardino-Balkaria's town of Prokhladny on October 9.