“We know that the crime was committed by radical Islamists,” Putin said on Monday evening as he commented on Friday’s attack, in which at least 139 people were killed. But the shooting fits into a broader intimidation campaign in Ukraine, Putin added.
“This atrocity may be just one link in a chain of attempts by those who have been at war with our country at the hands of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime since 2014,” Putin said. After the attack, the attackers tried to flee to Ukraine and the question arose: “Who was expecting them there?” asked Putin, who, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, met with representatives of various state authorities.
Masked attackers broke into the Crocus City Hall in the northwest Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk on Friday evening. The men opened fire on visitors to the concert hall and set them on fire. The total number of injured was put at 182. Shortly after the attack, the Islamic State (IS) jihadist militia claimed responsibility for the crime and later reiterated this several times.
Experts believe IS’s claim to be credible
Western security authorities and experts believe the confession is credible and suspect the IS offshoot Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISPK) was behind the attack. Nevertheless, Putin and other Russian officials claimed, without providing any evidence, that Ukraine was allegedly involved in the crime. The Ukrainian leadership strictly assigned this.
The White House dismissed Russian leadership’s statements about Ukraine’s alleged involvement as “Kremlin propaganda.” Putin and his cronies in the Kremlin were trying to find a way to blame Ukraine, National Security Council communications director John Kirby said in Washington on Monday. “But there is no connection to Ukraine.” This was an attack carried out by fighters from the Islamic State terrorist militia, Kirby said. “Period. End of sentence, end of story – no connection to Ukraine.” Putin is just trying to justify the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine.
Four Tajiks were taken into custody because of the crime. The Russian judiciary imposed pre-trial detention on three other people involved on Monday afternoon. The Basmanny District Court of the Russian capital made this decision, the state agency TASS reported. This means that seven terror suspects are now in custody, including the four suspected shooters. A total of eleven suspects were arrested after the attack last Friday. The four alleged main perpetrators appeared before the judge on Sunday evening.
Suspected perpetrators seriously injured
When the alleged perpetrators were brought to Moscow’s Basmanny Court by police and secret service agents on Sunday, their serious injuries were immediately apparent. The men had severely swollen faces, lacerations and bruises. One suspect had a bandage over his right ear, another had a black eye and a torn plastic bag around his neck. Another was unable to walk on his own and reportedly temporarily lost consciousness. Videos circulated on social networks showing how the suspected attackers were tortured and one of them even had his ear cut off. The court said three of the four suspects had pleaded guilty.
Picture gallery: The first pictures: shooters opened fire in the Moscow concert hall
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Kremlin spokesman Peskov did not want to comment on Monday about the numerous reports of torture by Russian security forces. To a journalist who pointed out the men’s injuries and torture videos that were clearly visible in the courtroom, Peskov simply said: “I’ll leave this question unanswered.”
Alleged torture of suspects condemned
Human rights activists, however, condemned the alleged torture of the suspects by Russian security forces. “The answer to barbarism must not be barbarism,” said the Russian association “Komanda protiw pytok” (German: Team Against Torture) on Monday. Violence and harassment also had an extremely negative impact on the investigation, the activists emphasized: “We have always said and will always say that the value of evidence that security forces obtain through torture is critically low. Instead of the truth, a person usually tells the thing that can stop or at least interrupt this torture.” Forced confessions could lead the investigation in a completely wrong direction.
Picture gallery: Grief and horror after attack on concert hall near Moscow
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Torturing prisoners also increases the willingness to use violence in society, according to the Russian human rights activists from “Komanda protiw pytok”. According to the organization, in Russia, where repression has been steadily increasing, particularly since the beginning of the war against Ukraine more than two years ago, torture occurs again and again – but mostly behind closed doors. “This time we witnessed not only a monstrous terrorist attack, but also public torture. This is a method of paralyzing people through fear and turning the entire society into indirect victims of violence.”
Leonid Volkov, a confidant of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who recently died in a prison camp, was convinced that the recordings had reached the public on instructions from the very top. The fact that the power apparatus is so demonstratively displaying its own cruelty is new, Volkov wrote in the Telegram news service. This is probably intended to distract attention from the “failure of the Russian secret services” before the attack, he said.
97 injured people are still being treated
Three days after the terrorist attack, 97 injured people were still being treated in hospitals. This was announced by the head of the health administration in the Moscow region, Lyudmila Bolatayeva, on Monday. The patients are spread across clinics in the capital and the Moscow region. The injuries sustained varied in severity, she told Russian news agencies. Grieving people continued to lay flowers at an improvised memorial site on the fence of the Crocus City site. Cleanup work continued on site at the destroyed Crocus City Hall. It cannot be ruled out that more bodies will be found in the rubble of the burned-out concert hall.
