Russia has charged four Tajiks in connection with the deadly terrorist attack on a concert venue near Moscow on March 22 that left at least 137 people dead.
Russian media identified the men as Saidakram Rajabalizoda, Dalerjon Mirzoev, Muhammadsobir Faizov, and Faridun Shamsiddin and said they are Tajik citizens. The court said three of the four men had pleaded guilty to all charges during the closed-door hearing.
The announcement followed Russian media reports that several Tajik citizens were involved in the deadly attack, while unverified videos purportedly showed several suspects -- Tajik citizens -- being interrogated.
Earlier, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said the 11 suspects arrested in connection with the deadly attack at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk were foreigners but did not announce their identities.
The Tajik government, a close ally of Moscow, insists it has not received any "official information" from Russian authorities about Tajiks allegedly involved in the attack.
But Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), says the opposition has information that several Tajik nationals and Tajik-Russian citizens took part in the massacre.
Kabiri blamed the Tajik government's authoritarian policies and crackdown on Islam for "radicalizing" some of its citizens. The IRPT -- which served in the government -- is banned in Tajikistan.
Russian lawmaker Aleksandr Khinshtein wrote on Telegram that Tajik passports were found inside the car the suspects allegedly used to flee before being caught by Russian police in the Bryansk region, about 340 kilometers southwest of Moscow.
Harsh Interrogation
Rajabalizoda, the man who was later charged with terrorism, appeared in two separate, unverified videos that show him confessing to have taken part in the Moscow attack. In graphic footage, Russian security officials are shown cutting off the man's ear.
Before-And-After Images Suggest Severe Abuse Of Moscow Terror Suspects
He is also shown with his head wrapped in a bandage and his face and T-shirt covered in blood. The man says he and other accomplices left their weapons "somewhere on the road" as they fled the scene of the attack. RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the footage.
Another unverified video shows a handcuffed young man telling his interrogator that he was hired by unknown people via Telegram to "shoot at people" for money.
Speaking Russian with a Tajik accent, the man identified himself as Faridun Shamsiddin and said he was born in September 1998. He said he had been contacted by the "assistant of an [Islamic] preacher" whose lectures he had been listening to on Telegram.
According to Shamsiddin, the assistant offered him about 1 million rubles ($10,800) to kill people with provided weapons and told him the site of the attack.
The assistant gave no information about himself: "no name, no surname, nor anything else" he claimed, adding that "half of the money" had been transferred to him before the attack.
The face of the Russian-speaking interrogator and other men holding the suspect were not shown in the footage, which was widely circulated on Russian websites and social media on March 23 before appearing on state media outlets.
The authenticity of the video cannot be independently verified.
Shamsiddin and other suspects detained and shown in videos made no mention of the extremist Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the mass killings, or the Islamic State-Khorasan offshoot that has also been mentioned as possibly carrying out the attack.
Another short video shows a third suspect -- an unidentified man speaking Tajik -- telling interrogators through a translator that he had been unemployed and looking for job when he befriended a man called Abdullo via Telegram "about 10 days ago."
The man said Abdullo offered to buy a car together with him so they could work as taxi drivers. Abdullo "was among us," the man said, though it's unclear if he was referring to the attack.
According to Russian media reports, the suspects detained in Bryansk also include Muhammadsobir Faizov, 19, who hails from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.
Faizov was reportedly wounded before his arrest and was treated at a Bryansk hospital before being taken by Russian law enforcement.
Two accounts on the Russian social media platform VKontake were linked to Faizov, showing that he had worked at a barber shop in the Russian city of Ivanovo until November. It also showed that he subscribed to the social media accounts Islam My Life and I Love Islam and that he had shared posts about his religious beliefs.
The names of several other alleged Tajik nationals and their photos appeared on Russian websites as suspects in the attack.
Shohin Safolzoda, a 22-year-old native of the Tajik district of Faizobod, was among them. Little is known about Safolzoda or why he's alleged to have taken part in the attack.
Tajikistan's Interior Ministry very quickly rejected Russian media reports about the involvement in the attack of three Tajik nationals: Rivojiddin Ismonov, Mahmadrasul Nasriddinov, and Rustam Nazarov, saying in a statement on March 22 that two of the men were at home in Tajikistan at the time of the assault and a third was at work in the Russian city of Samara, several hundred kilometers from Moscow.
But the ministry has not commented on the others with Tajik names who were reportedly detained and interrogated on the videos.
Migrants In Russia Under Pressure
The reports and videos have added to anti-Tajik and anti-migrant sentiments that were already at high levels in Russia, home to millions of workers from Tajikistan and other former Soviet Central Asian countries.
A cafeteria run by Tajik migrants was set on fire in the Far East city of Blagoveshchensk, while three Tajiks were reportedly beaten in the western Russian city of Kaluga.
In several Russian cities, taxi service customers were reportedly canceling their order if the driver was Tajik.
Backlash against other Central Asians was also reported.
Dozens of Kyrgyz men were detained upon arrival at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow on March 23 and held in rooms with beds, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reported the next day. They said they had not received any food or water for nearly 24 hours and that women and children had been sent on flights back to Kyrgyzstan.
