Moscow attack: four charged

Moscow’s Basmanny district court has charged four suspects who attacked a Moscow concert hall with acts of terrorism.

Three were marched bent double into a Moscow court while the fourth was in a wheelchair. All were charged with committing an act of terrorism.

President Vladimir Putin declared Sunday a national day of mourning and Russia lowered flags to half-mast. Earlier on Sunday, people laid flowers at Crocus City Hall, the 6,200-seat concert hall outside Moscow where the men burst in just before Soviet-era rock group Picnic was to perform its hit “Afraid of Nothing”.

Putin’s close aide and deputy chair of Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that they won’t spare anyone involved in the attack.

The Islamic State group, or IS, said it carried out Friday’s outrage at Crocus City Hall and posted video evidence. The men were identified as citizens of Tajikistan, Russia’s state news agency Tass said.

All four are to be held in pre-trial detention until at least 22 May, the court added.

The four were named by Russian authorities as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni and Muhammadsobir Fayzov.

Four gunmen on Friday night stormed the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, a northern Moscow suburb, and began firing on some of the estimated 6,000 people who were attending a rock concert. The men fired their automatic weapons in short bursts at civilians who fell screaming.

The attackers also set fires which engulfed the venue and caused the roof to collapse.

Russian authorities said 137 people were killed and more than 100 injured.

(Agencies; Picture Courtesy: Investigative Committee of Russia via AP)

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