(RightWing.org) – Terrorists targeted a music venue in a northwestern suburb of Moscow on the evening of Friday, March 22. The latest report from Russian state-run media outlet TASS revealed that 139 people died and 182 people suffered from injuries during the attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation the following day and confirmed that law enforcement officials had detained 11 suspects so far. Recent reports indicated that four suspects made their first appearance in court over the weekend.
TASS reported on Sunday that four of the detainees directly involved in the terrorist attack appeared in court earlier that day in a string of three separate articles. The court approved the suspects’ arrest under Article 202, Part 3, Provision B of the Russian Criminal Code. The judge overseeing the case formally extended their detention until May 22, pending the collection of further investigative leads and subsequent actions by state prosecutors.
Western news outlets reported that the court released a video and photographs showing officials leading the suspects into the courtroom. They brought one of the suspects into the courtroom in a wheelchair. Another wore a blindfold. The remaining two had bruises and swelling on their faces.
One of the suspects told the court through an interpreter that he was a citizen of Tajikistan, a land-locked Islamic country in Central Asia surrounded by China, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. TASS reported that the other three suspected terrorists also hailed from the Asian nation, citing officials with Russia’s Investigative Committee.
Putin and other Russian authorities attribute the attack to Ukraine, although the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the deadly incident. That claim is bolstered by news reports that ISIS released a “grotesque” video showing “scenes from [the] attack” on the Russian music venue.
Overseas media outlets reported that ISIS officials reportedly posted the video on a Telegram account run by Amaq, ISIS’ news outlet. The clip shows several men with knives and rifles in the Crocus City Hall’s lobby. The footage also pans the scene, revealing several bodies on the ground as the terrorists fire indiscriminately.
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