ST PETERSBURG: A former sushi chef from Kyrgyzstan has been named as the suicide bomber who killed 14 people and injured 50 in an explosion in the St Petersburg metro. Russia's state investigative committee informed that body parts of the man were found on the train while the suspect was identified, they declined to name him.
Releasing a statement, the Russian state investigative committee said, "It has been ascertained that an explosive device could have been detonated by a man, fragments of whose body were found in the third carriage of the train. The man has been identified but his identity will not be disclosed for now in the interests of the investigation." The blast occurred on Monday afternoon, a little after the train left Sennaya Ploshchad station. Senior investigator Svetlana Petrenko said that the train driver's decision to continue to the next station had most certainly helped save lives as it allowed prompt rescue.
Train driver Alexander Kaverin talked to the reporters saying, "I just followed the procedure. You will know that this isn't the first terrorist act that we've had, there've been explosions before, so smart people came up with smart procedures. And these procedures say that in this situation, I had to take the train to the nearest station. This is what I did. The train kept moving."
Meanwhile, the Kyrgyzstan security service has identified the suspect as Akbarzhon Jalilov. The 22 year old is said to be born in the Kyrgyz city of Osh, in 1995, and held Russian citizenship. CCTV images of the suspect have also been released, showing him in a red Parka jacket, and a green beanie, carrying a rucksack on his back through the Metro. Police authorities said they have reason to believe that he had close links to radical Islamists.
Russia has been on a high alert against Chechen rebels returning from Syria, where they have fought alongside Islamic State, and wary of any attempts to resume attacks that dogged the country several years ago. At least 38 people were killed in 2010 when two female suicide bombers detonated bombs on packed Moscow metro trains. Over 330 people, half of them children, were killed in 2004 when police stormed a school in southern Russia after a hostage taking by Islamist militants. In 2002, 120 hostages were killed when police stormed a Moscow theatre to end another hostage-taking. Putin, as prime minister, launched a 1999 campaign to crush a separatist government in the Muslim southern region of Chechnya, and as president continued a hard line in suppressing rebellion.
