Security forces take one of those accused of carrying out the attack to a hearing in a court in Moscow (French)

Russia has cast doubt on US assertions that ISIS is responsible for the armed attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, which killed 137 people, while a Moscow court charged the perpetrators of the attack who were arrested earlier with terrorism charges.

In the bloodiest attack inside Russia in two decades, four men stormed the Crocus Concert Hall last Friday evening and fired a barrage of bullets at the attendees.

The authorities detained the four attackers, and they appeared separately being led by members of the Federal Security Service to the cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and the United States confirmed the organization's involvement in the attack. American officials said that they warned Russia earlier this month of an imminent attack based on intelligence information.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova questioned the United States’ assertions, and said in an article for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, “A question for the White House: Are you sure it is ISIS? Can you think about it again?”

She added that the United States is using the "scarecrow" of ISIS to cover up its actions in Kiev, and reminded readers that Washington supported the "mujahideen" who fought against Soviet forces in the 1980s.

The four defendants during today’s session in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow (French)

Kremlin position

For his part, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on ISIS's claim of responsibility for the attack, and said, "Investigations are ongoing. A coherent narrative has not yet been issued. We are only talking about preliminary data."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that 11 people had been arrested, including the four gunmen who fled from the concert hall and made their way to the Bryansk region, about 340 kilometers southwest of Moscow, to sneak across the border into Ukraine.

The Kremlin refused to comment on the issue of whether the suspects were subjected to ill-treatment after their detention. Peskov said, “I will leave this question unanswered,” after reports and video recordings spread on social media in Russia of investigations that included violence following the arrest of the suspects.

A court in Moscow placed the four defendants in pretrial detention for two months, and confirmed that they are accused of terrorism and face a life sentence. Their scheduled period of pretrial detention may be extended until next May 22, pending their trial, the date of which has not yet been set.

The court showed footage showing three suspects being brought into the courtroom handcuffed and shackled, then sitting in the glass cage designated for the accused, while the fourth arrived in a wheelchair.

According to the court, two of the defendants admitted their guilt, and one of them - who is from Tajikistan - admitted his “full guilt.”

The fate of the seven others whose arrest was announced the day before yesterday, Saturday, was not revealed, nor was their possible role in the attack determined.

Source: Al Jazeera + agencies