The four accused of the attack on the popular Russian concert hall
Crocus City Hall,
where
at least 137 people died,
were placed in preventive detention this Sunday after testifying before a court in the Russian capital.
Three of them admitted their guilt.
The Basmanny District Court of Moscow indicted
Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev,
32;
Saidakrami Rachabalizoda,
30;
Muhammadsobir Faizov,
19;
and
Shamsidin Fariduni,
25, of committing a
group terrorist attack
.
The crime carries a maximum sentence of
life in prison.
Vladimir Putin's government
showed images of the four for the first time.
Mirzoyev, Rachabalizoda and Shamsidin Fariduni admitted their guilt
after the charges against them were announced.
The fourth,
Faizov, was brought to court in a wheelchair directly from a hospital, and remained seated with his eyes closed
during the hearing.
While he was in the room, he received medical attention.
Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, one of the accused.
At the hearing, Mirzoyev said that he is
a citizen of Tajikistan and has three minor children.
This detainee lived in the Moscow region with residence documents that expired three months ago, the TASS agency reported.
The presentation of the four before Justice occurred on the night of a
day of national mourning in Russia
after the massacre that occurred on Friday, in the deadliest attack in Europe claimed by the Islamic State group (IS).
The preventive detention of the accused, set
until May 22,
may be extended pending their trial, the date of which has not yet been decided.
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The jihadist
IS claimed responsibility for the attack
on the Crocus City Hall concert hall, but the Russian authorities still do not mention this claim and point to a Ukrainian lead.
The death toll could rise as rescuers continue searching
through the rubble of the building, set on fire by the attackers.
The attack left
at least 182 injured, 101 of them still hospitalized and 40 in critical condition,
health authorities reported.
Moscow's museums and theaters remained
closed over the weekend,
and the capital's restaurants promised
to donate part of their Sunday profits to the families
of the victims.
"People no longer smile, there is no joy anymore,"
Valentina Karenina, a native of Siberia but passing through Moscow, told AFP, who went to light a candle in a church near the famous Red Square, closed to the public this Sunday. .
The jihadist group, which Russia fights in Syria and is present in the Russian Caucasus, committed other attacks in the country during the last decade.
The heavily armed attackers broke into the Crocus City Hall, in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, on Friday night:
they shot at the audience and set part of the hall on fire.
Vladimir Putin seeks to involve Ukraine
On Saturday, Putin promised to punish those responsible for the "savage terrorist act" and said that
four men who were trying to flee to Ukraine had been detained.
These four people, all "foreign citizens", were detained in the Bryansk region,
on the border with Ukraine and Belarus,
according to authorities.
The FSB (Russian security service) stated that the suspects
had "contacts" in Ukraine and planned to flee to this country
after the attack, but did not offer evidence of this alleged link or provide details.
Kiev denied any link
and President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Putin of trying to "place the blame" on Ukraine, in the midst of the war between the two countries.
The spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, Adrienne Watson, reiterated this Sunday that
the jihadist group is solely responsible and that Ukraine is not involved.
The US authorities indicated that
they had warned Russia, in early March, about a possible "terrorist" attack in a place in Moscow
with "large concentrations" of people.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Sunday that
France was raising its attack alert level to its maximum,
following the "threats that weigh" on the country.
According to the SITE terrorism research group, ISIS released on its social networks a video apparently made by the attackers in which they appear entering the concert hall and shooting people.
On the streets of Moscow,
some do not believe much in Ukraine's involvement.
"I think that behind this terrorist act are the extremist Islamists of ISIS. Ukraine also commits terrorist acts, but
this is more in line with what the Islamists do
," insisted Vomik Aliev, a 22-year-old medical student.
However, for Valeri Chernov, 52, the involvement of Ukraine and the West in the attack is totally credible.
"Who is behind it? The enemies of Russia and Putin who seek to destabilize power.
It is really possible (that) Ukraine and the West" have used ISIS, he stated.
Another pending issue is
the nationality
of the perpetrators of the attack.
According to Russian media and MP Alexander Jinstein, some of the suspects are from
Tajikistan,
a former Soviet republic in Central Asia,
bordering Afghanistan.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon told Putin on Sunday that the perpetrators of the attack
"have no nationality, homeland or religion."
With information from agencies.