2006 Moscow market bombing

2006 Moscow market bombing
Location Moscow, Russia
Coordinates 55°48′00″N 37°45′09″E / 55.80000°N 37.75250°ECoordinates: 55°48′00″N 37°45′09″E / 55.80000°N 37.75250°E
Date August 21, 2006
Target Outdoor market
Attack type
 Time bombing
Deaths 13
Non-fatal injuries
 47
Perpetrators The Saviour

The 2006 Moscow market bombing occurred on August 21, 2006, when a self-made bomb of the power of more than 1 kg of TNT exploded at Moscow's Cherkizovsky Market frequented by foreign merchants.[1] In 2008, eight members of the racialist organization The Saviour (Спас) were sentenced for their roles in the attack.[2]

Many traders at the market are from Asia and the Caucasus. As of October 3, 2006, 13 persons were confirmed dead: six citizens of Tajikistan, three citizens of Uzbekistan, two citizens of Russia, a woman from Belarus, and a man who was a Chinese citizen. Eight people died on the scene, two in the hospital on the same day as the bombing, and three at a later date. The latest person to die of the bombing was a man who was a citizen of Tajikistan who died on September 28, 2006, in a hospital.[3]

Two ethnic Russian suspects were arrested, and the general prosecutor of Moscow Yuri Syomin charged them of a racially-motivated murder.[4][5] The prosecutor's office officially indicted three university students, Oleg Kostyrev, Ilya Tikhomirov (both 20 years old) and Valeri Zhukovtsev (18 years old) on a racially-motivated murder charge on August 22.[6] The police investigation was finished on August 7, 2007.

According to the investigation, Kostyrev, Tikhomirov and Zhukovtsev were members of the nationalistic club The Saviour. The leader of the club, Nikolai Korolev (a former FSB officer), and two more club members, Sergei Klimuk and a police academy student Nikita Senyukov, were co-indicted with Kostyrev, Tikhomirov and Zhukovtsev on the charges of murder, terrorism, organizing a criminal gang and illegal production and storage of explosives. Senyukov was also indicted for murder of an Armenian student on a subway. Allegedly, the conspirators have performed numerous explosions before, without any victims, blowing up Azerbaijani-owned stores, an Armenian refugee hostel and an office of a Georgian-born fortune teller.[7]

On May 15, 2008, after a guilty verdict in the jury trial, Korolev, Klimuk, Tikhomirov and Kostyrev received a sentence of life imprisonment. Zhukovtsev received 20 years in prison, Senyukov - 13 years and two students who actually delivered the bomb to the market, Dmitri Fedoseyenkov and Nikolai Kachalov only 2 years (the court decided they were not a part of the "criminal enterprise").[8] Later the same month, the appeal was filed with the Supreme Court by the convicted.[9] Fedoseyenkov and Kachalov were released from prison on March 20, 2009 after serving their sentence. Other convict's appeals were still underway as of that time.[10]

In August 2010, it was announced that Korolev and Kostyrev are also suspects in a murder of a Chinese citizen by stabbing in Moscow on May 19, 2006.[11]

References

  1. ↑ Market Blast Kills 10 and Injures 55
  2. ↑ Russian court jails market bombers Al Jazeera. 15 May 2008.
  3. ↑ Газета.Ru - Число жертв взрыва на Черкизовском рынке достигло 13
  4. ↑ Danilova, Maria (August 22, 2006). "2 Accused of Hate Crime in Moscow Blast". The Washington Post.
  5. ↑ "Moscow attack 'may be race hate'". BBC News. August 22, 2006.
  6. ↑ Prosecutor's office solved the anti-terrorist act, Kommersant, August 23, 2006.
  7. ↑ Terrorists students given up by a diary, Kommersant, August 8, 2007.
  8. ↑ Saviour convicted with applause, Kommersant, May 16, 2008.
  9. ↑ Convicted nationalists complain about the pressure, Kommersant, May 29, 2008
  10. ↑ Освобождены двое обвиняемых по делу о взрыве на Черкизовском рынке
  11. ↑ Осужденных за взрыв на Черкизовском рынке обвиняют в убийстве китайца (in Russian). RIA Novosti. 27 August 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2011.