EXTREMIST NATIONALISTS SUSPECTED IN THE TERROR ATTACK ON NEVSKY EXPRESS
AZG DAILY
01-12-2009
Russia
The confirmed death toll from the crash of the Nevsky Express train
that occurred Friday evening on the Moscow-St. Petersburg line stands
at 25, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu told the crisis
management conference at the crisis management center, which began
shortly after midnight, hours after the incident.
"Twenty three died instantly and two others, in hospital," he said.
"Hospitals in the Novgorod and Tver regions have accommodated 87 of
those injured, and St. Petersburg hospitals, 15," the minister said.
"The whereabouts of 27 people who are known to have been on the train
remain unclear," Shoigu said.
The train was carrying 682 people – 653 passengers and 29 crew –
coach attendants and engine drivers, Itar-Tass reported.
According to Russian news agencies, a criminal investigation has been
instigated under article 205 (terrorist attack). RIA Novosti quoted a
source in the Novgorod law enforcement services as saying that police
were looking for a man aged about 30 and a woman in a silver VAZ-2109.
Earlier, police chief Rashid Nurgaliyev described one of the suspects
as a stocky red-headed man about 40 years old.
The train left Moscow at 7 pm. The bomb exploded at about 9:40 pm
under the locomotive of the train while it was traveling at about 200
kilometres an hour on the Aleshinka-Uglovka section of the railroad,
near the northern border of the Tver region. According to police
sources cited by the Kommersant daily, the bomb, estimated at about
7 kilogrammes in TNT equivalent, contained a mix of explosives that
included ammonium nitrate, which was responsible for the flare that
passengers on the train reported seeing. The bomb was buried under
the right rail and was reportedly activated via a wire attached to
the detonator, explosives experts cited by the paper said.
The second bomb, placed near an electric pole a few metres from the
rail, went off at 2 pm on Saturday, just as Alexander Bastrykin, chief
of the Russian Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s
Office, was touring the scene of the previous blast.
The blast had all the trappings of a previous attack on the same Nevsky
Express on August 13, 2007, Kommersant reported. Then, 60 people were
injured. Although extremist nationalists were initially suspected
in the attack, two Ingush nationals, Maksharil Khidiyev and Salambek
Dzakhiev, were arrested for bringing the explosives. They were said
to have been acting on the orders of former military serviceman Pavel
Kosolapov and Chechen militant warlord Doku Umarov, both of whom are
subjects of an Interpol search.
Kosolapov was named as a possible suspect on Sunday, Kommersant
reported, adding that he is also described as stocky and red-headed.
But it had not yet been confirmed whether Umarov was linked to the
latest blast, police sources said.