News / Russia

Russia arrests man who trained St. Petersburg bomber

Monday, 17 April 2017 6:24 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 17 April 2017 6:35 PM ]

A police officer escorts a man suspected of involvement in the Saint Petersburg metro bombing inside a court building in Saint Petersburg on April 7, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The Russian security service says it has arrested a suspected organizer of the recent Saint Petersburg metro bombing that killed 14 people and injured dozens more.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement on Monday that the suspect, identified as Abror Azimov, had been apprehended in Odintsovo, a city on the outskirts of the capital, Moscow.

The FSB described the suspect as one of the organizers of the attack and added that the 27-year-old man was armed with a pistol and was "originally from Central Asia."

The photo taken on April 17, 2017 shows Abror Azimov, another suspect in connection with the St. Petersburg bombing, as he is wrestled to the ground in Odintsovo, a city just outside the capital, Moscow. (Via Tass)

The suspect has been taken for questioning to the Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, the FSB said.

The Investigative Committee had said earlier that the perpetrator of the attack was a 22-year-old Kyrgyz-born Russian citizen, identified as Akbarjon Djalilov, whose body parts were found in one of the train carriages.

Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted the FSB as saying that Azimov had "carried out training” of Djalilov.

The photo shows the scene of a bomb blast at a metro station in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 3, 2017. (Photo by RIA Novosti news agency)

Eight other suspects have already been detained in Moscow and St. Petersburg over the bombing. The head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said last week that they all hailed from Central Asia.

The Kremlin has called the terrorist attack in Russia’s second largest city a "challenge to every Russian, including the head of state."

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