MOTHER, DAUGHTER FACE 10 YEARS FOR STUN-GUN ROBBERY
By Natalya Krainova
Staff writer
An elderly Moscow woman and her daughter are facing up to 10 years in prison for purportedly using a stun device to rob a company offering a knitting course in which the daughter had enrolled, city police said.
The daughter paid 10,000 rubles ($360) for the knitting classes but became disenchanted with the course and demanded a refund, police said in a statement.
«We have information that they weren’t satisfied with the quality of teaching,» police spokesman Anatoly Lastovetsky said of the mother and daughter.
Police identified the two women only by their first names and the first initial of their last names: Svetlana A., 35, and Iraida A., 73.
With the aim of retrieving Svetlana’s money, the two women went to the office of the company running the knitting courses on 1st Ulitsa Yamskogo Polya, near the Belorusskaya metro station in northern Moscow.
The company secretary asked the women to draw up a written request for a refund addressed to the company’s director, a common requirement for reimbursement in Russia.
The two women, however, demanded their money back immediately. After the secretary refused, the elderly woman pulled an electric-shock device from her purse and stunned the employee with the device, police said.
The two women then snatched the secretary’s purse, which contained 34,000 rubles ($1,200), and fled the office, according to police.
After recovering from the electric shock, the secretary reported the incident to police, who detained the two suspects at their apartment shortly thereafter.
Police opened a robbery investigation Thursday, the city police said.1
Aim Цель
Common Общепринятый
Demand (v) Требовать
Detain Задерживать
Device Прибор, устройство
Disenchant Освобождаться от чар
Draw up Составлять документ
Enroll Записываться, зачисляться
Face up 10 years in prison Грозит 10 тюрьмы
Flee (fled, fled) Убегать
Initial Начальная буква
Knitting course Курс по вязанию
Purportedly Предположительно
Purse Дамская сумочка, кошелек
Recover Приходить в себя, выздоравливать
Refund Возврат суммы
Reimbursement Компенсация
Request Просьба, требование
Requirement Необходимое условие
Retrieve Вынимать, возвращать
Rob Грабить
Robbery Грабеж
Run the course Проводить курс (занятия)
Snatch Вырывать, похищать
Stun Оглушать
Suspect (n) Подозреваемый
KIEV – A painting worth as much as $100 million has been stolen from a museum in the Ukrainian port of Odessa.
Museum workers said they had repeatedly asked city authorities to modernize the security system. Police said the thieves bypassed an alarm by entering through a window.
Staff of the Museum of Western and Eastern Art said Friday that the painting – by Italian artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and called «The Taking of Christ (Or the Kiss of Judas)» was found missing Thursday.2
Alarm Сигнал тревоги
Bypass (v) Обходить
Find (found, found) Находить
Missing Потерявшийся
Security system Система охраны
Steal (stole, stolen) Украсть
Thief (thieves) Вор
Worth Стоящий (о цене)
7 Dead in Japan After Killing Spree
TOKYO – A Japanese man rammed a truck into a crowd of shoppers, jumped out and went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo’s top electronics district Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 10 others.
The deadly lunchtime assault paralyzed the Akihabara neighborhood, which is popular among the country’s cyber-wise youth. The killings were the latest in a series of grisly knifings that have stoked fears of rising crime in Japan.
A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, was apprehended in the attack. Local news reports initially said the man was a self-proclaimed mobster, but national media later said he was not.
«The suspect told police that he came to Akihabara to kill people,» said Jiro Akaogi, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.
«He said he was tired of life. He said he was sick of everything,» Akaogi said.
The violence began when he crashed a rented, 2-ton truck into pedestrians. News reports said he jumped out and began stabbing the people he had knocked down with the truck and then turned on horrified onlookers.
