Achi news desk-
- Ukraine denies participating in a concert tragedy.
- Putin promises to punish all those behind the attack.
- Over 100 people remain in hospital.
MOSCOW: Russia lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning and charged four men it accused of shooting scores of people at a concert outside Moscow on Friday night in the deadliest attack inside Russia in two decades.
President Vladimir Putin declared Sunday a national day of mourning after vowing to punish all those behind the attack, in which 137 people were killed, including three children, and 182 were injured.
Over 100 people remained in hospital, some of them in a serious condition. Video footage showed a dejected-looking Putin lighting a candle in a church at his residence outside Moscow on Sunday night to honor those who died.
Earlier on Sunday, people laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men entered just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic performed their hit ” Afraid of Nothing”. The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at civilians who fell screaming.
Daesh has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the militant group in connection with the attackers, who he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He said that some on the “Ukrainian side” had been ready to spirit the gunmen across the border.
Ukraine has denied any involvement in the attack.
The Basmanny district court in Moscow on Sunday charged four suspects with terrorist acts in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, according to the official Telegram channel of the Moscow courts.
He said the men, identified by Russian media as all citizens of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be held in pre-trial detention until May 22. Three of the four were had pleaded guilty to all charges, he said. .
After unverified and brutal videos of the suspect’s interrogations circulated on social media, courtroom images published by Russian media showed a suspect brought in on a wheelchair who appeared to have missing an eye, another had a bandage where his right ear should be, another had black. eye and a torn plastic bag around his neck, and the fourth suspect with a swollen face appeared disoriented and struggled to keep his eyes open.
Friday’s attack was the deadliest on Russian territory since the Beslan school siege in 2004, when militants took more than 1,000 people hostage. More than 300 people died at the time, more than half of them children.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said Russia would target those behind the deadly shooting wherever they come from and whoever they are.
He had previously spoken of the need to meet “death with death” and some lawmakers have begun to discuss whether the death penalty should be reintroduced.
Across Moscow, billboards carried a picture of a single candle, the date of the attack and the words “We mourn”.
Countries around the world have expressed horror at the attack and sent their condolences to the Russian people.
Gunmen
Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four suspected gunmen, who fled the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340 km (210 miles) southwest of Moscow .
“They tried to hide and move towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them to cross the state border on the Ukrainian side,” Putin said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the gunmen had links in Ukraine and had been caught near the border.
Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which he called a special military operation needed to protect Russia and Russian speakers in Ukraine.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Putin of trying to divert the blame for the attack on a concert hall by referring to Ukraine.
Daesh, the militant group that once sought control over parts of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack in a Telegram statement from the group’s Amaq agency. On Saturday night, Daesh released on its Telegram channels what it said was footage of the attack.
In video footage published by Russian media and Telegram channels with close ties to the Kremlin, one of the suspects said he was offered money to carry out the attack.
“I shot people,” the suspect said, his hands tied and his hair held by an interrogator, a black boot under his chin, in poor, accented Russian.
When asked why, he said: “For money.” The man said he had been promised half a million rubles (just over $5,000). One was shown answering questions through a Tajik translator.
Unverified footage posted to Russian Telegram channels appeared to show one of the suspects being tortured with electric shocks in custody. Reuters could not verify its authenticity.
‘No involvement of Ukraine’
The White House said the US government shared information with Russia early this month about a planned attack in Moscow, and a public adviser to Americans in Russia announced on March 7. He said Daesh was solely responsible for the attack.
“There was absolutely no Ukrainian involvement,” said US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.
Russian officials have criticized US public comments on the attack, the first of which were made shortly after news of the attack broke, and say Russian investigators must be allowed to make their own findings.
