The Moscow city court is checking the legality of the arrest of Tajik national Sodiq Ortiqov on suspicion of involvement in the April 3 St Petersburg subway bombing, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports.
Moscow’s Basmanny district court ruled on April 7 to take Sodiq Ortiqov under custody as one of suspects involved in the St Petersburg subway bombing.
Representative from the Russia Investigative Committee said that Makarov pistol, F-1 hand grenade and two TNT block had been found in an apartment in Moscow rented by Sodiq Ortiqov.
Meanwhile, Sodiq Ortiqov has denied his involvement in the St. Petersburg terrorist attack. Speaking in the court, Ortiqov said he saw the pistol, the grenade and the TNT blocks for the first time.
Ortiqov was born and grew up in Qurghon Teppa, the capital of the Tajik southern Khatlon province, but over the past fifteen years, he has worked in Moscow.
Sodiq Ortiqov was detained in Moscow on April 6 together with Ms. Shohista Karimova from Uzbekistan.
On the same day, six other suspects were arrested in St. Petersburg.
FSB chief Bortnikov, who is also the head of the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said at a NAC meeting on April 11 that the suspects are members of a clandestine terrorist cell. “Large amounts of weapons and means of destruction have been seized. Search is underway for the masterminds and the possible accomplices,” he said.
According to Russian media reports, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on April 17 detained one of the suspected masterminds of the April 3 terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg subway.
He was reportedly identified as a 27-year-old Abror Azimov, “originally from Central Asia.” According to the FSB statement, Abror Azimov trained suicide bomber, Akbarzhon Jalilov.
FSB officers have seized a service pistol from the suspected mastermind, as shows a FSB footage received by TASS. Judging by the video, the suspect was detained near a railway station in Moscow oblast’s Odintsovo district west of Moscow.
Recall, an explosion on a train carriage in St Petersburg's subway killed at least 14 people and injured dozens more.
The blast hit a train travelling between two stations in the western city's center during mid-afternoon.
Another explosive device was later found at a nearby station but it was made safe by authorities.
The suspected suicide bomber has been named as 22-year-old ethnic Uzbek Akbarzhon Jalilov, who is thought to have been a Russian national born in Kyrgyzstan.
Jalilov is suspected of triggering a homemade explosive device while on a train in a subway tunnel.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Russia's Anti-Terrorism Committee said it was looking for the “perpetrators and organizers of the terror attack.”
