FIVE OF 8 SUSPECTS ADMIT PARTIAL GUILT IN MOSCOW MARKET BLAST CASE
ITAR-TASS
Jan 30 2008
Russia
MOSCOW, January 30 (Itar-Tass) – Five of the eight defendants on trial
of the Moscow market blast case admitted partial guilt, a lawyer said.
"Five defendants have disagreed with the characterization of their
actions – terrorism and participation in the organized criminal group,"
Artur Timushev, a lawyer of one of the accused," told Itar-Tass.
The three remaining defendants, including the alleged gang leader,
fully denied the commission of the crimes they have been charged with,
he said.
The court adjourned until January 31. The inquest may last about two
months, a judge said.
On Tuesday, the Moscow City Court selected jurors to try the
Cherkizovsky market blast case. Fourteen people were killed in the
explosion on August 21, 2006, including two children, and another 47
people were injured.
Twelve principle jurors and eight alternates have been selected,
Dmitry Bakharev, a lawyer of one of the defendants, told Tass.
Earlier, the court granted the state prosecutor’s request to hold the
hearings in camera, in connection with the security measures for the
participants and their relatives.
After the fatal explosion, three university students were soon detained
on suspicion of involvement.
Their group is also thought to have on its record eight blasts in
Moscow in 2006 that went without causalities. The Investigations
Committee said they are responsible for the bomb attacks on a room
of the Academy of Bioenergy Information and Psychological Assistance
to Population "Liliana," a dormitory of the Moscow Enterprise of
Automated Lines and Special Machine-Tools, a sales pavilion belonging
to the Lubstroi company, the Neolit cafe, an extension to an apartment
house which served as a Muslim prayer room, a game machines hall and
a sales row # 41 at the KBF AST fair.
Investigators believe that the crimes were motivated by ethnic hate.
In all, eighth young people have been charged with involvement in
terrorist acts, and of illegal possession of arms and explosives.
The prosecutors accuse them of staging, among eight blasts, a bomb
attack on the editorial office of the newspaper Russky Vestnik that
the defendants considered too soft-spoken about "persons of non-Slavic
ethnicity".
Leader of the group Nikolai Korolyov is accused of organizing a
criminal group which committed serious and very serious crimes.
Other defendants – Sergei Klimuk, Dmitry Fedoseyenko, Nikolai Kachalov,
Nikita Senyukov, Oleg Kostarev, Valery Zhukovtsev and Ilya Tikhomirov
were all charged with participation in a criminal group, but with
different degrees of involvement.
Kostarev, Klimuk, Zhukovtsev, Tikhomirov and Korolyov are accused the
murder of two or murder persons, motivated by ethnic or religious hate.
Senyukov is accused of killing Armenian university student Vagan
Abramyants at Moscow’s underground station Pushkinskaya.
Most of the defendants are students of Moscow colleges and members
of the unregistered group Spas ("Savior").
According to investigators, they had no political program, but were
guided by ethnic bigotry.
Spas is a chauvinist, pseudo-patriotic organization, whose members
show intolerance to non-Russians, investigators said.