A leading Bolshoi Ballet soloist has confessed to ordering the acid attack on the artistic director of the famous company and risks up to 12 years in jail, Moscow police said Wednesday.

Pavel Dmitrichenko, one of the Theater's leading male dancers, signed a confession along with two other suspects who were all arrested on Tuesday in a dramatic denouement to the investigation into the January attack on Sergei Filin.

"I organized the stated crime, but not on the scale that it turned out," a haggard-looking Dmitrichenko said in a confession videotaped by police and broadcast on Russian television.

The attack on Filin left him fighting for his eyesight and risking permanent facial disfigurement.

Police said the "motive of the crime was the hostile personal relationship Pavel Dmitrichenko had with Sergei Filin, which was linked to their work."

The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily said that Dmitrichenko was aggrieved that his girlfriend, ballerina Anzhelina Vorontsova, was being passed over by Filin for major roles.

Dmitrichenko was the mastermind of the attack, accomplice Yury Zarutsky was the assailant who flung acid into Filin's face and Andrei Lipatov was the getaway driver, the police said.

AFP