4 men, all visibly injured, charged in deadly Moscow concert hall attack
Russian media had reported that the men were tortured during interrogation
Four men accused of staging the Russia concert hall attack that killed more than 130 people appeared before a Moscow court on Sunday, showing signs of severe beatings, as they faced formal terrorism charges. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing.
Court statements said two of the suspects accepted their guilt in the assault, though the men's condition raised questions about whether they were speaking freely. There had been conflicting reports in Russian media outlets that said three or all four men admitted culpability.
Moscow's Basmanny District Court formally charged Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32; Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, 30; Shamsidin Fariduni, 25; and Mukhammadsobir Faizov, 19, with committing a group terrorist attack resulting in the death of others. The offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The court ordered that the men, all of whom are citizens of Tajikistan, be held in pre-trial custody until May 22.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday described the suspects as "radical Islamists," and he repeated his accusation that Ukraine might have played a role despite its strong denials.
Russian media reported that the four were tortured while being interrogated, raising questions about whether their pleas might have been coerced.
Russian authorities reported that seven other suspects have been detained, and that three of them were remanded by the court Monday on charges of being involved in the attack.
The attack Friday night at the Crocus City Hall music venue on Moscow's western outskirts left 139 people dead and more than 180 injured, proving to be the deadliest in Russia in years. About 100 people remained hospitalized, officials said.
As they mowed down concertgoers with gunfire, the attackers set fire to the vast concert hall, and the resulting blaze caused the roof to collapse.
The search operation will continue until at least Tuesday afternoon, officials said. A Russian Orthodox priest conducted a service at the site Monday, blessing a makeshift memorial with incense.
Anti-torture groups condemn suspect treatment
During Sunday's court hearing, one of the suspects was in a wheelchair in a hospital gown, accompanied by medical personnel, and sat with his eyes closed throughout. He appeared to have multiple cuts.
Another had a plastic bag still hanging over his neck and a third had a heavily bandaged ear. Russian media reported Saturday that one suspect had his ear cut off during an interrogation. The Associated Press couldn't verify the report or videos purporting to show this.
Russian human rights advocates condemned the violence against the men.
Team Against Torture, a prominent group that advocates against police brutality, said in a statement that the culprits must face stern punishment, but "savagery should not be the answer to savagery."
It said the value of any testimony obtained by torture was "critically low," and "if the government allows for torture of terrorism suspects, it may allow unlawful violence toward other citizens, too."
Net Freedoms, another Russian group that focuses on freedom of speech cases, said the torture, together with Putin's recent call on security services to "punish traitors without a statute of limitation no matter where they are," effectively authorizes "extrajudicial killings and give[s] instructions to security forces on how to treat enemies."
"We're seeing the possible beginning of the new Great Terror," the group said, referring to mass repressions by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The group foresees more police brutality against suspects in terrorist-related cases and a spike in violent crimes against migrants.
Abuse of suspects by Russian law enforcement and security services isn't new, says Sergei Davidis of the human rights group Memorial.
"We know about torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war, we know about mass torture of those charged with terrorism, high treason and other crimes, especially those investigated by the Federal Security Service. Here, it was for the first time made public," Davidis said.
Parading beaten suspects could reflect a desire by authorities to show a muscular response to try to defuse any criticism of their inability to prevent the attack, he says.
The concert hall attack was a major embarrassment for Putin and came less than a week after he cemented his grip on Russia for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times.
Many on Russian social media questioned how authorities and their vast security apparatus that actively surveils, pressures and prosecutes critics failed to prevent the attack despite the U.S. warning.
Davidis says the treatment of the suspects was perhaps made public "to show the severity" of Russia's response.
"People are not satisfied with this situation when such a huge number of law enforcement officers didn't manage to prevent such an attack, and they demonstrate the severe reaction in order to stop these accusations against them," he said.
The fact that the security forces did not conceal their methods was "a bad sign," he said.
An offshoot of ISIS based in Afghanistan, ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-K), has claimed responsibility for the attack.
ISIS has targeted Russia since it intervened in the Syrian civil war. In October 2015, a bomb planted by ISIS downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people aboard, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.
The group has also claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia's volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years.
