In this Sunday, Nov. 4, 2012 file photo, Russian dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, as Ivan the Terrible, right, and ballerina Anna Nikulina as Anastasia, wife of Ivan the Terrible perform at a dress rehearsal of Ivan the Terrible (Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible) in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia.
MOSCOW — 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.