Tajik national Sodiq Ortiqov faces charge of involvement in an April 3 subway bombing in St Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Ortiqov’s defense lawyer says investigators failed to produce proofs of his client’s involvement in St Petersburg subway bombing.
“Weapons found in an apartment rented by Ortiqov do not belong to him. Ortiqov did not live alone in that apartment,” the lawyer said.
Ortiqov also insists on his innocence. According to him, weapons found in the apartment belong to his fellow countryman who has already left Russia.
Recall, Moscow’s Basmanny district court ruled on April 7 that Ortiqov should remain in detention until June 3, 2017.
Ortiqov, 39, 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.
Representative from the Russia Investigative Committee said that Makarov pistol, F-1 hand grenade and two TNT block had been found in the apartment rented by Sodiq Ortiqov.
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.
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.
