Two Catholic priests found murdered in Moscow apartment

Two Roman Catholic priests were murdered in the apartment where they lived in an upmarket district of Moscow, investigators said yesterday.

Victor Betancourt, a Jesuit priest from Ecuador, was killed in the apartment on Saturday and Otto Messmer, a Russian who led the country's Jesuits, was killed there two days later after returning from a foreign trip, their order said in Rome.

"The killing of a person is a grave sin," said Father Igor Kovalevsky, Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Russia.

"The church is praying for those who carried out this terrible crime, so that God gives them the grace to repent."

The two priests had sustained injuries to their heads and brains, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office said in a statement. "Investigators have launched a probe into the murder," it said.

Police discovered the bodies at the apartment - a short walk from the Kremlin and on the same street as the Moscow criminal police headquarters - late on Tuesday.

"The investigation is considering all possible versions of what could have happened, including a domestic crime, because the room bore signs of a party," the Investigative Committee statement said.

It said the door to the apartment was found open but there were no signs that property had been stolen.

The Jesuit order in Rome said a fellow priest had come to the apartment after becoming worried that he had not heard from the two men. He found their bodies and alerted police.

The apartment where the priests lived is in one of Moscow's most exclusive districts. A television crew said the metal door to the Jesuits' third-floor apartment had been sealed by police.

"Two men used to live here, usually it was all quiet," said an elderly neighbour strolling with her dog outside the building. "This used to be a quiet house and a calm place."

Another neighbour, who lives on the floor above the two Jesuits, said he had seen one of the priests but had no other contact with them. The neighbour said Russian author Anton Chekhov, who died in 1904, had lived in the same apartment.

A statement issued by Jesuit headquarters said Fr Betancourt, 42, had been working at a theological institute in Moscow. Fr Messmer, 47, was a Russian citizen of German origin and that two of his brothers are also Jesuits.

"Police investigations have yet to come to any firm conclusions about (the) cause of these violent deaths," the statement said.