Russia Snares Explosion Suspect Who Kills General With Layered Articles, Threatened With Life In Prison

Russian FSB. (Wikimedia Commons/RIA Novosti archive, image #846846/Andrey Stenin/CC-BY-SA 3.0)

JAKARTA - Russian authorities have ensnared a suspect in connection with an explosion that killed one of its senior generals with multiple articles and is threatened with life imprisonment.

The press office of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Russia had succeeded in arresting the suspect behind the explosion that killed the Head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.

The office said the suspect was a 29-year-old state citizen of Uzbekistan, recruited by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, with rewards in US dollars.

The suspect was transferred to the Russian Investigative Committee to document his criminal acts within the framework of a criminal case, which includes charges based on Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code (Terrorist Action), Article 105 (Killing), Article 222.1 (Deposit of Explosives and Explosives Illegally) and Article 223.1 (Deed of Explosives and Explosives Illegally).

"He has the potential to be sentenced to life in prison for this crime," said FSB, quoted from TASS December 18.

"Ukraine intelligence service employees involved in organizing terrorist attacks will also be found and punished," the FSB press office said.

The suspect, who claimed to have been recruited by the Ukrainian intelligence agency, admitted that he was rewarded with 100 US dollars and European passports.

"Why am I doing this? I was offered 100,000 US dollars and European passports," he said during interrogation in a video published by the Center for Public Relations of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Lieutenant General Kirillov and his aide Major Polikarpov were killed in an explosion from an explosive-mounted scooter near an apartment on Jalan Ryazansky, Moscow on Tuesday.

The suspect monitored the location of the explosion, installed a monitoring camera that was directly connected to Dnepr (Dnipro, Ukraine) and rented a rental vehicle. The explosives were then detonated remotely.