St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko and FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev have staged the assassination attempt, human rights activists believe.
Photo: ITAR-TASS
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Two Suspects in Planned Attack on Matvienko to be Charged
Charges are to be brought soon against two people detained for involvement in plotting the assassination of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) told a news conference in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. Nikolay Patrushev said that the two detainees are involved in activities of an extremist organization. Meanwhile, human rights activists say that the attempt looks like a staged action.
In a joint raid carried out by the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry’s investigative department, several grenades and over 0.5 kilograms of plastic explosives were seized. “We believe that the plot was foiled in an early stage,” Nikolay Patrushev said.
A Kommersant source in the FSB says that the detainees are ethnic Russians who have recently converted to Islam. Information in early March helped to trace a group who was buying explosives.
“Two members of an extremist youth group have already been detained. They will be charged with plotting this crime today or tomorrow,” FSB Director told reporters. “Another two suspects have been freed from custody after giving a written pledge not to leave the city.”
Nikolay Patrushev did not name the extremist organization that the suspected criminal belonged to. Recent media reports say it was Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international pan-Islamist political party which aims to establish a unitary caliphate in the Muslim world. The organization has been active in the Central Asia since the early 1990s. Russian intelligence services accuse Hizb ut-Tahrir of extremist propaganda and inciting religious hatred.
Geidar Dzhemal, head of the Islamic Committee of Russia, said he had no information about the detainees. “But I think the whole story with the assassination looks like a staging,” Mr. Dzhemal told Kommersant. The Islamic rights champion says that the campaign may be aimed at giving a terrorist shade to fight with Islamists and a reason to limit the number of foreign workers at construction sites in St. Petersburg where about a million of Central Asian Muslims come every year.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 24, 2007
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