Over 400 detained in anti-Putin protests
2012-05-06 21:06
Moscow - Moscow police on Sunday said they detained more than 400 people after clashes with protesters at a mass opposition rally in the capital on the eve of Vladimir Putin's inauguration as Russian president.
"According to preliminary information, more than 400 people have been detained in all," a Moscow police official told the ITAR-TASS news agency.
Those arrested included three key leaders of the nascent protest movement against Putin - the anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny, liberal leader Boris Nemtsov and ultra-left wing activist Sergei Udaltsov.
AFP reporters at the site of the rally over the Moscow River from the Kremlin reported additional arrests being made nearly three hours after the first violence broke out.
Around 20 police officers were also hurt in the violence, with three of them requiring hospital treatment, Interfax quoted an interior ministry official as saying.
