Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko claims the metro bombing case has been solved, two days after the terrorist attack, which claimed 12 lives.
Lukashenko said that the detained confessed to Monday’s attack and also the bombing on Independence Day in Minsk in 2008 and the bombing in Vitebsk in 2005. “The security forces and the police needed only one day for such a brilliant operation to get those who carried out the attack, without any extra noise and chatter” Lukashenko said on Wednesday at a meeting with the country’s top security officials.The president ordered law enforcers to question the political opposition leaders in connection with the blast. “I ordered to investigate all the announcements of these ‘political actors’. Maybe these actors of the so-called ‘fifth column’ will open their cards and point at those who had ordered [the attack]." "It's necessary to interrogate every one of them, regardless of all the wails and moans of foreign sufferers…The faces of those villains should be revealed to people" added the Belarusian leader.Lukashenko also ordered to suppress any signs of panic in Belarus and ordered law enforcers to reveal and uncover all the unregistered arms and explosives in the country and jail the owners within one month. According to the president, it is the only way to avoid terror attacks.The investigation now has all the evidence against the three suspects detained in Minsk, all three have confessed to Monday’s attack, the Interior Minister of Belarus Anatoly Kuleshov told journalists in Minsk on Wednesday. “We have gathered all the evidence against the suspects and their involvement in the blast in Minsk. All three have admitted their guilt” said Kuleshov.Earlier on Wednesday, the head of the investigation, Andrey Shved, told the press that there were two detained suspects. They are from one of Belarus’ regions and that the two knew each other.“It is well seen on the CCTV record that he arrives to Kupalovskaya station, transfers to Oktyabrskaya and stays there for a while, and then he puts the bag on the bench and leaves the station, moving his hands in his coat pocket. After that the blast happened," said Shved.CCTV cameras captured the moment when a man, allegedly one of the detained, arrived at the station and left a bag, just before the blast.There is no analog to the explosive used in the terror attack on the Minsk Metro, the Chief of the Federal Security Forces of Belarus Vadim Zaitsev said at his briefing in Minsk on Wednesday. “It was a special explosive which is of a particular interest to experts” concluded Zaitsev. “We haven’t found anything similar in the database of any country”.Meanwhile, Belarus is mourning the victims of the bombing. The line of the Minsk metro that was closed to the public right after explosion was reopened on Wednesday, under the order of President Lukashenko. People are lighting candles and laying flowers at the entrance to Oktyabrskaya station. Trains pass the station without stopping.The first funerals took place in Belarus on Wednesday.More than 150 of the 200 injured remain in hospital.
Suspect says he gets pleasure from human suffering – police source
According to a source quoted in an Interfax report, after watching the CCTV footage for the last few days from all subway stations investigators ascertained that one of the suspects regularly came out of the metro at Frunsenskaya station. The station was put under observation. When they noticed the man who looked similar to the suspect on CCTV, the investigators followed him to his house and detained him.During the interrogation, the man allegedly confessed that he carried out his first terror attack back in September 2005 in Vitebsk. After not being caught he was then conscripted into the Belarusian Army and reportedly moved to Minsk from Vitebsk after his Army service term. He claims he found on the internet instructions on how to make a more powerful explosive device, and made it himself. He then allegedly detonated the device on Independence Day in Minsk in 2008.According to the suspect, he escaped the obligatory fingerprinting of 2008, which all males in the country were required to undergo following the blast.According to the source, the detained has already talked to psychologists. “The psychologists say the detained is mentally fit. He explained his actions were because of the satisfaction he gets from people suffering. The psychologists have compared the detained with a famous fictional character Dr. Hannibal Lecter” said the source. “The detained said that he was acting alone and does not put forward any political motives.”Hereby, the Federal Security Service of Belarus has confirmed its version of a psychologically-ill person being behind Monday’s metro blast. ”One of the versions we put forward yesterday has proved to be true. There are people not only mentally ill, but also ill-ambitioned” the Chief of the Federal Security Forces of Belarus Vadim Zaitsev said at his briefing in Minsk on Wednesday.