AP News, May 10th, 2007
A court Thursday ordered the arrest of two men allegedly involved in what security agents said was a thwarted terror plot planned for Victory Day involving an explosives-laden car, a spokeswoman said.
The Lefortovo District Court sanctioned the arrest of Umar Batukayev and Ruslan Musaeva in connection with the investigation, said court spokeswoman Anna Usacheva. She identified Batukayev as a student at a Moscow law university, but gave no other information on Musaeva or any other details.
Earlier, Russian news agencies quoted officials with the Federal Security Service, or FSB, as saying that law enforcement agents had discovered an explosives-laden passenger car near a residential building in a Moscow region on Tuesday and only finished defusing it on Thursday.
Demolition experts used a robot to retrieve bomb components, including a radio to set off the bomb, a grenade, a fuse and electric detonators, as well as a submachine gun with two cartridge clips, Interfax quoted the FSB as saying.
A search of the back seat revealed a bomb containing 15 pounds of plastic explosives and ball bearings, computer chips and additional charges, Interfax said.
Russian television broadcast video of security agents shooting a water cannon at a small, partially wrecked Russian-made sedan.
An FSB duty officer confirmed the reports, but refused to elaborate.
News agencies quoted the FSB as saying that several people from the North Caucasus region had been detained in the investigation.
RIA-Novosti quoted a defense lawyer for Batukayev as saying that the court order for his client's arrest was illegal and that he would challenge the order.
The Russian organization For Human Rights said Batukayev's relatives complained they could barely recognize him when he appeared at the Lefortovo court Thursday, that he could not stand up, and that he appeared to have been brutally beaten.
Law enforcement officials could not be reached for comment on the allegations.
Security forces routinely go on higher alert during Victory Day, which marks the triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II. During celebrations in 2004, a bomb exploded in a stadium in the capital of Chechnya, killing Chechen President Akhmed Kadyrov.
