Regional governor in Russia arrested on murder charges

MOSCOW (AP) — A provincial governor in Russia's far east has been arrested on charges of involvement in multiple murders, officials said Thursday.

Sergei Furgal, the governor of the Khabarovsk region along the border with China, was arrested in Khabarovsk and was flown to Moscow.

The Investigative Committee, the nation's top criminal investigation agency, said Furgal is accused of involvement in the murders of several businessmen in the region and nearby territories in 2004-2005.

Russian TV stations showed the video of Furgal's arrest, in which agents removed the 50-year-old governor from his car, searched him and drove him away.

President Vladimir Putin will review the charges against Furgal before making a decision on whether to relieve him of his duties, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. In Russia, the president has the authority to fire governors and name acting governors who then face elections.

The Investigative Committee said that four of Furgal's suspected accomplices were also arrested.

Before becoming the governor of the Khabarovsk region in 2018, Furgal served as a federal lawmaker on the ticket of the Liberal-Democratic Party for a decade. In 2015-2016, he headed the public health committee in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

Liberal-Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky criticized law enforcement agencies over the arrest, arguing that there was no need to put Furgal in handcuffs. He said that the entire party faction of 40 members of the 450-seat Duma may leave the legislature and call on its members to renounce other official posts to protest Furgal's arrest.

Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin dismissed Zhirinovsky's demarche as blackmail.

The charges against Furgal date back to the period when he worked as a...