The suspected suicide bomber who killed 14 people and injured 50 in the St Petersburg underground has been identified by Russian authorities as 22-year old Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian of Kyrgyz…
The suspected suicide bomber who killed 14 people and injured 50 in the St Petersburg underground has been identified by Russian authorities as 22-year old Akbarzhon Jalilov, a Russian of Kyrgyz origin.
Fragments of his body were found on one of the train carriages and his DNA was also discovered on a second bomb defused shortly after the blast.
“Forensic experts have also discovered Jalilov’s genetic traces on a bag containing an explosive device left at Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station. This evidence as well as the surveillance cameras give us reason to believe the person behind the terrorist act in the train was the same who left that bag at Ploshchad Vosstaniya station,” said Svetlana Petrenko, spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee.
The bomb went off between two stations and the driver of the train, Alexander Kaverin, has been praised for his decision to keep the train going until the next station to make evacuation easier.
“I had no time to be afraid, I just had to do my job,” he told reporters.
When asked whether passengers panicked, he replied: “No, people didn’t panic. When the doors of the first carriage opened, they were all there trying to understand what had happened. They did not even leave the carriage.”
Russia has been on high alert after the so-called Islamic State threatened revenge attacks in reprisal for its military intervention in Syria. The hardline group has been linked to recent attacks elsewhere in Europe.