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FSB detains one of St. Petersburg terror attack organizers

Russia's Federal Security Service announces arrest of Abror Azimov, one of the alleged organizers of St. Petersburg metro attack

© Sergei Konkov/TASS

MOSCOW, April 17. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained one of the suspected organizers of the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg subway on April 3.

The FSB Public Relations Center informed TASS that "the Russian Federal Security Service detained in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region today one of the organizers of the investigated crime, a native of the Central Asian region, Azimov Abror Akhralovich, born in 1990 who trained suicide bomber, Akbarzhon Jalilov, as part of the criminal case opened by the Russian Investigative Committee over the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg subway."

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"At the moment, Abror Azimov has been brought to the Russian Investigative Committee for investigative activities," the FSB said.

FSB officers have seized a service pistol from the suspected mastermind of a terrorist attack on the St. Petersburg metro as he was apprehended, as shows a FSB footage received by TASS on Monday.

Judging by the video, the suspect was detained near a railway station in Moscow region’s Odintsovsky district west of Moscow.

One of the officers asked the man whether he realized what was going on. "Yes," he answered. Then a combat pistol was removed from a rear trouser pocket, and two smartphones were also seized from the suspect

On April 3, an explosive device went off in a subway train car when the train was moving from Tekhnologichesky Institut station to Sennaya Ploshchad station. The terror attack killed 14 passengers and the man who set off the explosive device, while 102 people were injured. The Russian Investigative Committee disclosed the suicide bomber’s name. That was Akbarzhon Jalilov born in 1995, a native of Kyrgyzstan.

The investigation

On April 6, the Russian Investigative Committee said eight criminal case suspects - Seyfulla Khakimov, Ibragibzhon Yermatov, Dilmurod Muidinov, Bakhram Yergashev, Azamzhon Makhmudov, Makhamadyusuf Mirzaalimov, Shokhista Karimova and Sodik Ortikov - had been detained. Six of them were detained in St. Petersburg, and two - in Moscow. The criminal case is being investigated under Part 3 of Section 205 ("Terrorist Attack") and Part 2 of Section 222 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Illegal acquisition, transfer, sale, transportation or carrying explosives or explosive devices"). Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastryking, has held two meetings with the members of the investigative team setting the task of exposing the connections of each of the suspects and find out who the mastermind behind the crime was.

At a meeting of the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) on April 11, its Chairman and FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov said that the suspects were 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," the FSB director said.

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