Moscow stranglings make headlines

Several women have been strangled in Moscow in July

Police in Russia are continuing to deny that a serial killer is behind the murders of several women in Moscow over the past month.

But many papers are convinced the stranglings are the work of a lone killer, and are openly sceptical about the official explanation.

The daily broadsheet Nezavisimaya Gazeta is the most outspoken.

'Quiet panic'

"Moscow is gripped with rumours about a maniac attacking women. And although top police brass keep talking about 'an accidental string of similar crimes', Muscovites are in a state of quiet panic."

Maniacs are cowards. They won't dare attack someone who has seen their face Nezavisimaya Gazeta

"All these crimes look identical: a blow on the head, rape and strangling. In the latest attack, the killer didn't even take the victim's gold bracelet," the paper says.

It goes so far as to offer advice to women on how to behave if they are accosted by a maniac.

"Look him in the eye," the paper says.

"Maniacs are cowards. They won't dare attack someone who has seen their face."

Latest attack

The popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda carries a picture of the latest victim in a Moscow suburb.

The police continue to insist that the murders are not linked Izvestiya

It offers a graphic description of the crime scene under the headline "Moscow strangler strikes in Khimki".

The daily broadsheet Izvestiya carries a mainly factual report, offering a timeline of the stranglings.

"The police continue to insist that the murders are not linked.

"But unofficial sources say prosecutors have requested that all the cases be passed on to them by the Moscow police," the paper says.

Copycat

The popular tabloid Argumenty i Fakty is one of the few papers to accept the police version of "a string of coincidences".

Several copycats may be using the much-talked-about Moscow maniac to confuse the detectives Argumenty i Fakty

"Speaking about the murders being followed up by the Interior Ministry, the only thing they have in common is that the women were strangled," the paper says.

"The age of the victims - 17 to 42 years - does not fit into the serial pattern," it argues.

"The locations of the killings - from the east and north-east, to the north of the capital - are too far apart for a single maniac."

The paper offers another explanation for the murders.

"Several copycats may be using the much-talked-about Moscow maniac to confuse the detectives."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.