A Moscow court Sunday ordered pre-trial detention for four suspects charged with acts of terrorism in connection with an attack on a concert hall in the Russian capital that killed at least 137 people.
The four suspects appeared at a pre-trial hearing at Moscow’s Basmanny District Court, where they were ordered held until at least May 22 pending trial.
The Moscow courts Telegram channel identified the suspects as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Mukhammadsobir Faizov.
The court said Mirzoyev and Rachabalizoda admitted guilt.
Russian media identified all four suspects as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia.
Russia observed a day of mourning Sunday, two days after the attack at a suburban Moscow concert hall that also injured more than 180 people.
The attack Friday was the deadliest on Russian soil since the 2004 Beslan school siege, when Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.
Four armed men walked toward the metal detectors Friday at Crocus City Hall — a 6,200-seat concert hall — firing their automatic weapons point-blank in short bursts at terrified civilians who fell screaming in a hail of bullets, according to witnesses.
The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Russia Concert Hall Suspects in Court
In a statement posted by its affiliate Aamaq news agency on Telegram, Islamic State said it attacked a large gathering in Krasnogorsk on Moscow’s outskirts, killing and wounding hundreds. It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the claim.
Islamic State posted a grainy video purportedly showing the gunmen storming into what appears to be the Crocus concert hall.
In a televised address to the nation Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his “deepest condolences” to the families of the victims and declared a National Day of Mourning after vowing to track down and punish all those behind the attack that he called “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act.”
He said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340 kilometers southwest of Moscow.
"They tried to hide and moved toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border," Putin said.
Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, claimed the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border.
In his Saturday evening address Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Putin’s claim that Ukraine had been involved.
"Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else," he said.
Ukraine had "no involvement whatsoever" in the massacre in a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 137 people, the White House said Sunday, after Putin suggested a Kyiv connection.
"ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever," said White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
U.S. officials have said Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate IS-Khorasan carried out the attack.
The White House said the U.S. government had shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow and issued a public advisory to Americans in Russia on March 7.
Earlier this week, Putin denounced the U.S. warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians.
In video footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the arrested suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.
"I shot people," the suspect said on camera, his hands tied, and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot beneath his chin.
Another suspect was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.
In a phone call with Putin on Sunday, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon condemned the Moscow concert hall attack, while the two leaders said their security services were working together on counterterrorism, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The Islamic State group is active in Tajikistan. The Central Asian nation shares a border with Afghanistan.
Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
