The Russian presidency (Kremlin) yesterday refused to comment on the claim by the ‘jihadist’ group Islamic State (IS) for Friday’s attack in Moscow, which caused 137 deaths, as well as allegations of torture of the four detained suspects.
“I will leave this question unanswered,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, when asked by journalists about the publication of videos on social media and photographs showing suspects with blood on their faces.
In images of the arrests, broadcast on Russian public television, three of the men had blood on their faces.
Another video, released on the Internet and whose authenticity has not been confirmed, appears to show one of the suspects having his ear cut off by someone off camera, according to the French agency AFP.
A Moscow court on Sunday ordered two months of pre-trial detention for the four suspects, who risk a life sentence for terrorism.
Three of the suspects admitted guilt in court, authorities said. Russian security forces have detained 11 people in connection with the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, including the four suspects in pre-trial detention.
The attack, the deadliest in Russia in recent years, was claimed by a group affiliated with IS (also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh), the Islamic State — Khorasan, which operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Peskov also refused to comment on the IS claim, saying the case is being investigated.
“The investigation is ongoing and it would be wrong for the presidential administration to comment on the progress of the investigation. We won’t,” he said.
Peskov also said that, at this stage, President Vladimir Putin does not plan to visit the site of the attack. In a televised speech broadcast several hours after the attack, Putin condemned what he described as a “barbaric and bloody” terrorist act and called for revenge.
Although he did not speculate on the masterminds of the attack, he suggested that four of those detained tried to cross the border into Ukraine, which, according to the Russian leader, tried to create a “window” to help them escape. Ukrainian authorities have denied any involvement in the attack.
The attack also injured 182 people, 97 of whom remained hospitalized yesterday, as announced by the Minister of Social Development of the Moscow Region, Lyudmila Bolataeva, cited by the Russian agency Interfax.
When claiming the attack, IS justified that the attack was part of the context of the “violent war” between the group and “countries that fight against Islam”.
The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and several countries, including Portugal, and international organizations such as NATO condemned the attack.
The attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall is the deadliest of those claimed by IS in Russia. According to figures collected by the Spanish agency EFE, IS had claimed or been responsible for at least 14 attacks in Russia between 2015 and 2019.
The deadliest event until Friday occurred in the city of Magnitogorsk, in the Urals, with 39 dead in the explosion of a residential building on December 31, 2018.