Russian television broadcast images on Saturday of the interrogation after the arrest of the four alleged attackers who attacked a concert hall in Moscow the day before, killing at least 133 people. Russian authorities announced on Saturday the arrest of 11 people, including the four alleged attackers, foreign citizens, in the Bryansk region, bordering both Ukraine and Belarus.
Originally from Tajikistan
Russian public broadcaster Pervy Kanal showed footage of the suspects being taken away by armed law enforcement officers, three of them with blood on their faces. One of the suspects has a large white bandage around his head and blood on his right ear. In the footage of their interrogations, two of the suspects admit their guilt, one saying they acted for money. According to Russian media and MP Alexandre Khinstein, some of these suspects are from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia neighboring Afghanistan where the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack, is active. . Investigators did not mention the nationality of the suspects, only indicating that they were not Russian.
Pervy Kanal also broadcast an extract of images of an interrogation of the man with the bloody bandage around his right ear without mentioning another video broadcast on social networks, the authenticity of which could not be verified. by the AFP, and in which a man with black hair and a light brown t-shirt is held on the ground and a piece of his right ear is cut off. A person who is out of frame then tries to force him into his mouth and punches him in the cheek.
Chechnya and Belarus in support
The leader of Chechnya, a republic in the Russian Caucasus, Ramzan Kadyrov, for his part indicated that Chechen soldiers, deployed for months in the Bryansk region to secure the border with Ukraine, participated in the arrest of the suspects . Belarus, a country allied with Moscow, also indicated that it had taken part in the operations in order to prevent the attackers from “exiting (Russian territory) via the common border”. None of the videos mention Ukraine or ISIS.
According to Pervy Kanal, these men were arrested in the village of Khatsoune, in the Bryansk region. According to Vladimir Putin and the Russian special services (FSB), they were going to Ukraine where they had contacts to help them get through, despite Russian and Ukrainian defenses. Russian authorities have not mentioned the claim of the Islamic State jihadist group, nor mentioned the possibility of a flight to Belarus.