Narek Kocharyan, 15, an Armenian citizen, was killed November 11 at the Ivanteyevka railway station in the Moscow Region.
"The murder has been solved. Four young Ivanteyevka residents have been arrested," the Moscow Region Prosecutor's Office said, adding they have been charged under the provisions of Statute 111/4 of the Russian Criminal Law Code (infliction of grievous bodily harm leading to death).
Authorities have been generally reluctant to treat attacks on non-Russians as race-hate crimes, portraying them instead as acts of hooliganism.
Russia has seen a wave of apparently racially motivated attacks on non-whites in recent years, including an explosion at the Cherkizovsky market in northeastern Moscow August 21, which killed 11 people and injured at least 49. St. Petersburg has also been a focus for race-hate attacks: in September, an Indian student was stabbed to death in the city, and a Sudanese national was attacked.
