Investigation into 2017 St. Petersburg terrorist attack in final stage – agency

The criminal investigation into the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg Metro on April 3 last year is in the final stage, the Russian Investigative Committee (SKR) said on Tuesday. The SKR’s main directorate for the investigation of especially important cases, together with the Federal Security Service (FSB), have managed to establish the whole chain of persons involved in the crime, including the person who ordered the attack, the organizer and executors who were not familiar with each other, according to the statement. It said the attack was committed by one of the radical Islamist terrorist communities. An analysis of the “electronic traces” of the group’s communication allowed the prompt identification of all its members, investigators said, adding that 11 people were involved, who are being held in custody. A suicide bomber, identified later as Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Kyrgyzstan-born Russian citizen, detonated an explosive device on a train between the Sennaya Ploshchad and Technologichesky Institut stations, which claimed 15 lives and injured more than 100 people.