A taxi crashed into a crowd of people walking on a sidewalk near Moscow's Red Square on Saturday, injuring seven people including Mexicans in the city for the soccer World Cup, Russian officials and eyewitnesses said.
Moscow's traffic management authority said the taxi driver had a driver's license issued in Kyrgyzstan. The authority cited the driver, who was in police custody, as saying he had not driven into the crowd on purpose.
Police said seven people were hurt in the incident, which took place as residents and visiting soccer fans thronged the center of Moscow on a balmy summer evening.
A witness at the scene told Reuters that some of the people hit on Ilinka Street, which is about 200 meters from Red Square, were wearing Mexican team colors.
A second witness at the scene told Reuters about the driver of the taxi: "He was pulled out of the vehicle, he ran off but bystanders apprehended him. He was shouting: 'It wasn't me'."
Interfax news agency cited a source as saying that the driver was drunk at the time of the incident.
Preliminary information indicated the driver lost control of the vehicle.
A medical source cited by Interfax said none of the people hospitalized was critically injured.
.jpg?w=600)
