Terror suspects in Russia court show signs of torture and abuse
Russian authorities arrested three more suspects in the terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue that killed at least 137 people, and court documents said investigators believe they aided the four men who carried out the attack on Friday by providing transportation.
The four suspects arrested over the weekend appeared in court late Sunday showing signs of torture and severe abuse confirming videos and photographs that had surfaced after their arrest suggesting brutal treatment at the hands of Russian
authorities.
A barrage of videos had emerged of Russian security agents torturing the suspects - including forcing one to chew on a piece of his own ear that had been cut off, while another was stripped half-naked and subjected to electric shocks with wires attached to his genitals.
The videos, which appeared on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, were geolocated by Russian media to the time and place of the arrests in the western Bryansk region.
Russian authorities identified the four suspects as migrant workers from Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan where ISIS-K, the branch of the Islamic State that claimed responsibility for the attack on the Crocus City concert hall, is known to be active.
President Vladimir Putin conferred over the weekend with the leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Syria, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan - an apparent nod to the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility even as Putin and Kremlin-controlled media have pointed fingers at Ukraine.
Putin said Saturday that the suspects were apprehended while trying to escape to Ukraine, and Russia state media have suggested that the West is fabricating the claim of Islamic State culpability to protect Kyiv. Russian authorities have provided no evidence linking Ukraine to the attack, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied any role in it and accused Putin of trying to “shift the blame” for his own security failures.
The video and photo evidence of torture were only part of the clear thirst for revenge. In the days since the attack, several senior Russian officials have called for reinstating the death penalty, fueling fears among opposition figures that the Kremlin and security services will use the attack to toughen repression even further.
“They were caught. Well done to everyone who helped catch them.
Should they be killed?” asked former president Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council. “They should and they will be,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram blog Monday.
“But it is much more important to kill everyone involved. Everyone,” Medvedev added. “Who paid them, who sympathized with them, who helped them. Kill them all.”
Calls to restore capital punishment, which has been banned since 1996 after Russia signed a variety of human rights treaties and adopted a new constitution, have been made several times since the war in Ukraine began, as proinvasion figures grew more radical and aggressive. Yet there were no signs of legislative action.
That has now changed. Vladimir Vasilyev, the leader of the governing United Russia party’s faction in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said the proposal to restore capital punishment would be considered.
“There are a lot of questions circulating about the issue of the death penalty now. This topic will certainly be deeply, professionally and meaningfully studied,” Vasilyev said in televised remarks. “And a decision will be made that will meet the moods and expectations of our society.”