Pilot Who Landed in Red Square Charged With Attempted Murder
Matthias Rust, the young West German pilot who stunned the world by landing a small plane on Moscow’s Red Square, has been charged with attempted murder, authorities said today.
Rust, 22, was charged in the November, 1989, stabbing of a nurse in a Hamburg hospital, an official of the Hamburg prosecutor’s office said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Rust was charged at the beginning of the month.
Rust allegedly stabbed the nurse after she fended off his attempts to kiss her. He was held briefly in custody, then released on bail.
Rust flew a single-engine Cessna plane undetected across a vast space of Soviet territory and landed at Red Square in May, 1987.
The landing triggered a shake-up in the Soviet military--the retirement of defense minister Gen. Sergei Sokolov and the dismissal of air defense chief Gen. Alexander Koldunov.
Rust was held in a Soviet prison for 14 months before he was released in August, 1988.
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