Russia police arrest skinheads in 20 murders probe

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Police in Moscow on Tuesday said they arrested four Russian teenagers linked to a skinhead gang that prosecutors accuse of murdering at least 20 foreigners.

Attacks on dark-skinned foreigners have risen dramatically in Russia, especially on migrants from former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus attracted northward by an economy stronger than their own.

"They were all arrested in the course of an investigation into a group of skinheads guilty of the murder of at least 20 non-Slavic people," a spokesman at the Moscow Prosecutor General's office said.

Police have now arrested nine members of the group headed by a 17-year-old, the spokesman said.

Last October Moscow's deputy mayor warned the Russian capital stood on the brink of an explosion in racist skinhead violence directed at foreigners.

(Reporting by Tanya Ustinova, writing by James Kilner, editing by Matthew Jones)