MOSCOW, March 25 — Russia lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning and charged four men it accused of gunning down scores of people at a concert outside Moscow on Friday night in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades.
President Vladimir Putin declared Sunday a national day of mourning after pledging to punish all those behind the attack, in which 137 people were killed, including three children, and 182 were injured.
Over 100 people remained in hospital, some of them in a serious condition. Video footage showed a sombre-looking Putin lighting a candle at a church at his residence outside Moscow on Sunday evening to honour those who died.
Earlier on Sunday, people laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where four armed men burst in just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit Afraid of Nothing. The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at civilians who fell screaming.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Putin has not publicly mentioned the militant group in connection with the attackers, who he said had been trying to escape to Ukraine. He said that some on “the Ukrainian side” had been prepared to spirit the gunmen across the border.
Ukraine has denied any role in the attack.
Moscow’s Basmanny district court on Sunday charged four suspects with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov, according to Moscow courts’ official Telegram channel.
It said the men, identified by Russian media as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be remanded in pre-trial custody until May 22. Three of the four had pleaded guilty to all charges, it said.
— Reuters
