AFGHAN VET EMBROILED IN CEMETERY BLAST CASE DIES IN CAR CRASH

Valeri Radchikov, former head of the Russian Fund for Afghan War Invalids (RFAWI) and a defendant in the Kotlyakovo cemetery blast case, has been killed in a car crash near Moscow. His Moskvich car drove into the opposite lane and collided with a truck at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday at the 79-km mark of the Minsk highway, the Moscow Region’ Interior Department has told Interfax. Of its four passengers, two of them including Radchikov died at the scene and the other two have been hospitalized. The explosion at the grave of former RFAWI head Mikhail Likhodei in November 1996 killed 14 people, among them Fund chairman Sergei Trakhirov and other fund leaders. Over 20 people were wounded. The Prosecutor General's office charged Mr. Radchikov, along with Andrei Anokhin and Mikhail Smurov, with plotting and carrying out the bombing.