Villagers in Russia have raised money to pay for a lawyer to defend a local man who killed his best friend after allegedly finding footage of him raping his eight-year-old daughter.

Factory worker Vyacheslav M, 34, has been released from custody amid calls from locals and television personalities not to charge him with murdering the man, who is believed to have abused several children.

'We have collected the money, thank you all,' said Vyachelsav's father, after a fund-raiser to pay for a top lawyer.

'It was not friends or relatives who helped, but strangers from the village.'

Vyacheslav said he had been drinking with his friend Oleg Sviridov, 32, when he allegedly saw video of his daughter being abused on Sviridov's phone.

Vyacheslav immediately confronted Sviridov who fled. He was eventually tracked down by the distraught father who stabbed him to death.

The killer has now been freed from jail and put under house arrest for two months pending an investigation.