Bear attacks woman in Siberia

A brown bear has attacked an elderly woman in Barnaul, southern Siberia.

A RIA Novosti correspondent quotes the chief of the Barnaul district interior ministry department Igor Solodovnikov as saying that the accident took place last Tuesday, August 6th.

A local entrepreneur living in a two-storey cottage kept a female bear, two cubs and a female wolf.

One of the cubs had broken loose, cleared the hedge and attacked a woman not far from the house. The master itself pulled the animal from the victim. The woman was rushed to hospital with fractured bones and lacerated wounds. The state she is in now is of moderate gravity.

Lawyers have launched consultations with the prosecutor's office as to whether the animals' master actually committed a crime and if it is possible to file a criminal case to investigate the "non-standard" incident.