Nineteen individuals have gone on trial underneath strict safety in Moscow, accused of collaborating in final 12 months’s live performance corridor bloodbath within the metropolis that killed 149 individuals and wounded greater than 600.
4 gunmen burst into the Crocus Metropolis Corridor on 22 March and fatally shot individuals who had been ready for a present by a preferred rock band earlier than setting the constructing on hearth.
A faction of the Islamic State group mentioned it was behind the assault however Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and different state officers have claimed, with out offering proof, that Ukraine had a task within the taking pictures spree, which Kyiv has strongly denied.
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A makeshift memorial to the victims exterior the Crocus Metropolis Corridor live performance corridor. Pic: Reuters
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The Crocus Metropolis Corridor following the assault. Pic: Russian Emergencies Ministry/Reuters
Russia’s prime legal investigation company mentioned in June that it believed the assault had been “planned and carried out in the interests of the current leadership of Ukraine in order to destabilise political situation in our country”.
The Investigative Committee additionally famous that the 4 suspected gunmen tried to flee to Ukraine afterwards.
The quartet, all recognized as residents of Tajikistan, had been arrested hours after the assault and later appeared in a Moscow court docket, exhibiting indicators of getting been severely overwhelmed.
Showing in court docket on Monday, the accused saved their heads down as they sat within the defendants’ cage.
Earlier this 12 months, the committee mentioned six different suspects had been charged in absentia and positioned on Russia’s wished checklist for allegedly recruiting and organising the coaching of the 4.
Different defendants within the trial had been accused of serving to them.
