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Suspects arrested over Minsk subway blast

Some suspects have been arrested in connection with a deadly explosion that occurred in the Minsk subway on Monday evening, Deputy Prosecutor General Andrey Shved, who heads a team investigating the blast, told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr. Shved refused to say whether there were foreign nationals among the suspects.

He said that nobody had yet claimed responsibility for the terror act.

“The crime scene was examined, with hundreds of pieces of material evidence collected,” Mr. Shved said.

“The examination of the damaged train nears completion. The bodies of those killed are examined by forensic experts.”

The death toll of the explosion that tore through the downtown Kastrychnitskaya (Oktyabrskaya) station at 5:56 p.m. climbed to 12 in the early hours of April 12. More than 150 people were injured.

Mr. Shved said that 10 of the 12 victims killed were believed to have been identified.
He said that experts of Russia’s Investigative Committee would arrive in Minsk the next day to aid the investigation. The Committee has some experience of investigating terror acts, he said.
The key priority is to “find the bastard or the group of people and punish them as quickly as possible,” Mr. Shved said.

He said that the explosion was equivalent to at least three kilograms of TNT. It is more likely that the bomb was radio controlled than set off by a suicide bomber, he noted.

Mr. Shved added that the explosion occurred near a bench on the platform, but the exact location of the bomb is not yet known. The bench was completely destroyed; only its fragments were found, he added. //BelaPAN en.belapan.by