Ballet dancer says he was behind Russian acid attack

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian ballet star who most recently played the title role in "Ivan the Terrible" at the famed Bolshoi Theater has confessed that he organized the acid attack on the theater's ballet chief, Moscow police said Wednesday.

Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the Bolshoi ballet, suffered severe burns to his eyes and face on Jan. 17 when a masked attacker threw a jar of sulfuric acid in his face as he returned home late at night. The 42-year-old former dancer is undergoing treatment in Germany.

Star dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, confessed to masterminding the attack, and two other men confessed to being accomplices, police said in a statement.

"I organized that attack but not to the extent that it occurred," a bleary-eyed Dmitrichenko said in footage released by Russian police.

Moscow police said in a statement that investigators believe that Dmitrichenko harbored "personal enmity" against Filin.

Investigators got suspicious of Dmitrichenko when they found out that he had recently been in a close contact with an unemployed convict. The suspects were making inquiries about Filin's schedule and whereabouts and bought SIM cards for mobile phones registered under fake names, police said.

Police found out that the acid that the alleged attacker, 35-year-old Yuri Zarutsky, splashed on Filin's face was bought at an auto shop. Police said Zarutsky is believed to have heated it to make the water evaporate to make the acid stronger. On the night of the attack Dmitrichenko tipped off Zarutsky when Filin left the theater, police said.

Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova told the AP that Filin had been informed about Dmitrichenko's detention, but said the theater would not comment until after the trial.

Dmitrichenko, who comes from a family of dancers and joined the Bolshoi in 2002, has danced several major parts in recent years, including the villain in "Swan Lake." Novikova said on Tuesday that management was unaware of any conflict between him and Filin. However, Channel One state television reported that Dmitrichenko's girlfriend, Anzhelina Vorontsova, also a Bolshoi soloist, was known to have been at odds with Filin.

Dmitrichenko remained in police custody pending a court hearing on Thursday in which prosecutors will move for formal charges against the three men, and it was unclear whether they had lawyers.

The Bolshoi Theater is one of Russia's premier cultural institutions, best known for "Swan Lake" and the other grand classical ballets that grace its stage. Backstage, the ballet company has been troubled by deep intrigue and infighting that have led to the departure of several artistic directors over recent years.

Filin's colleagues have said the attack could be in retaliation for his selection of certain dancers over others for prized roles. Filin told state television before he checked out of a Moscow hospital in January that he knew who ordered the attack but would not name the person.

Zarutsky was detained on Tuesday in the Tver region north of Moscow, police said. Police had also detained and questioned another suspected accomplice, identified as Andrei Lipatov, who is believed to have driven Zarutsky to the scene of the crime.

Russian news agencies reported that Lipatov had been detained in Stupino, a sprawling Moscow suburb where the Bolshoi owns summer houses used by its dancers and management. Dmitrichenko said in a recent interview that he was managing the Bolshoi dachas in his spare time.

The Bolshoi's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, accused longtime principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze of inspiring the attack. Tsiskaridze, a long-time critic of the theater's management, has denied the allegation and accused Iksanov and his allies of fueling the dispute.

Dmitrichenko's girlfriend was coached by Tsiskaridze.

When contacted by The Associated Press Tsiskaridze texted back: "I have nothing to say..."

Filin is the sixth artistic director at the Bolshoi since the legendary Yuri Grigorovich, who led the dance company for three decades, resigned in 1995 after losing a protracted dispute with theater management. Successive artistic directors have been unable to overcome the resistance from dancers and teachers still loyal to Grigorovich, but Filin was seen as capable of bridging that gap.

The Izvestia daily on Wednesday quoted ballet teacher Marina Kondratyeva as saying that Dmitrichenko had a brilliant career and would not have needed to seek revenge on Filin.

Kondratyeva admitted that his girlfriend Vorontsova had not been given leading parts lately but for a good reason: "How could Filin 'elbow her out'? Tsiskaridze is mentoring and coaching her — but she was just plain fat."

Vorontsova danced for Filin when he worked at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theater, Moscow's second ballet company. Russian newspapers said that Filin expected Vorontsova to stay at the theater when she finished doing her apprenticeship but she went to Bolshoi instead — before Filin was hired to work there.

Filin's lawyer, however, told the Rossiya television channel that Vorontsova is unlikely to be the only cause of the conflict.

"We cannot say that Ms. Vorontsova was the only reason why it happened," Tatyana Stukalova said. "We believe that investigators will still have to do a lot of work to establish all the facts."

Russian newspapers quoted unidentified ballet dancers saying that Dmitrichenko had a fiery temper.

In a rare public outburst, Dmitrichenko posted an angry comment in November responding to a newspaper review which said his "artistic scope is limited not to mention his physical potential."

Dmitrichenko on the website of the Kommersant daily accused the journalist of bias, calling the writer "a failed performer." Kommersant later took down his comment. One of the screenshots of the detailed remarks read:

"I'm happy, I'm accomplished, I work with the genius of a teacher, I work with Genius, Grigorovich himself!!! What about you??"

Dmitrichenko was due to appear at the Bolshoi in "Sleeping Beauty" on March 16 where he played Bluebird.

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Sasha Merkushev and Yelena Yegorova contributed to this report.

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Militants attack Yemen intelligence HQ, killing 14

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Suspected al-Qaida militants attacked a Yemeni intelligence headquarters on Saturday, killing 14 people in a bold attack in the country's main southern city of Aden, officials said.

The attack in the heart of the port city underscored al-Qaida's ability to launch deadly strikes despite a two-month Yemeni military offensive backed by the U.S. that earlier this year dislodged militants who had taken over a string of southern towns near Aden.

Militants attacked the intelligence building from two sides, firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, according to intelligence officials in the city and witnesses from the adjacent state TV and radio building. The assault left 11 soldiers and three intelligence officers dead, and six people wounded, the officials said.

They and the witnesses, who are government employees, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Al-Qaida-linked militants took advantage of political turmoil in Yemen to overrun several major towns in Abyan province, neighboring Aden. They held many of them months until the military drove them out of most areas in May, including the Abyan provincial capital of Zinjibar and the nearby town of Jaar. More than 100,000 people fled the violence there, with many taking refuge in makeshift shelters and schools in Aden.

Many of the militants escaped into nearby mountains, however, and have continued to carry out attacks. Suicide bombings and assassinations have targeted officials in Aden tasked with fighting al-Qaida. An al-Qaida front group, Ansar al-Shariah, was behind the kidnapping of a Saudi Arabian diplomat in the port of Aden in March.

The area sees other violence as well. Earlier this week, gunmen stormed a passenger plane after it landed in Aden and grabbed an opposition leader from his seat and spirited him away to an unknown destination. The masked gunmen burst into the airport building first, meeting no resistance from airport security. They then ran onto the runway and boarded the plane to kidnap retired Maj. Gen. Ahmed Abdullah al-Hassani, a former Yemeni navy commander and a prominent campaigner for the south's secession. It is not clear who was behind the abduction.

The United States considers al-Qaida in The Arabian Peninsula as the terror network's most dangerous offshoot, held responsible for several failed attacks on U.S. territory.

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Romney renews welfare reform attack against Obama

Romney in Des Moines (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

DES MOINES, Iowa—For the second day in a row, Mitt Romney attacked President Barack Obama on welfare reform, accusing his Democratic opponent of ditching a work requirement for those receiving government assistance.

Speaking at a local high school, Romney charged that Obama was undermining welfare reforms signed into law by former President Bill Clinton. But he added a new argument, telling supporters here that Obama spoke out against the work requirement when he was a member of the Illinois Legislature.

Romney accused Obama of simply carrying out his "original intent" to dial back the Clinton-era reforms with a recent Department of Human Services directive that removed some federal work requirements in order to allow states to be more flexible in determining who could qualify for government assistance.

"It is wrong to make any change that would make America more of a nation of government dependency," Romney said. "We must restore work in welfare."

If elected, Romney vowed, he would roll back the DHS directive, telling supporters, "I want more people working if they're going to receive government assistance."

Romney's comment came just hours after Clinton issued a statement calling Romney's claims "not true." And it happened just a day after the Romney campaign released a television ad attacking Obama on welfare reform, a spot that used Clinton's image. On Tuesday, the White House and the Obama campaign trashed Romney's claims on welfare reform as "blatantly dishonest."

It was Romney's first visit to Iowa in more than a month. Taking the stage, he called Des Moines a "home away from home" and gave a shoutout to Centro, an Italian restaurant popular among media and political types in town covering the Iowa caucuses.

But Romney quickly became somber, arguing that Obama's policies have not helped Americans around the country who are struggling.

"It's tough to be in the middle class in America today," he said.

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