A Russian lawmaker was arrested Wednesday in the middle of a parliament session in connection with two murders committed eight years ago, an official and news reports said. Rauf Arashukov, a 32-year-old senator representing the Karachayevo-Cherkessia region of Russia's Northern Caucasus, is suspected of involvement in the 2010 murders of two people and of pressuring a witness to one of the killings, according to investigators.

He allegedly acted as part of an organised group that included his father, a statement by the Russian Investigative Committee said. Arashukov was on the senate floor when police officers entered and read out a warrant, according to senate speaker Valentina Matviyenko. "He tried to get up and leave the session. I told him to sit down," she told state television.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019