Russia concert hall attack suspects appear in a Moscow courtroom

MOSCOW —  Suspects in the Russia concert hall attack, which left more than 130 people dead, made a court appearance Sunday in Moscow.

There was a heavy police presence around the Basmanny District Court, which is expected to determine pretrial restrictions for the men, who are suspected of opening fire on crowds of concertgoers Friday at the suburban Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk.

One suspect was led blindfolded into the courtroom. His blindfold was removed, and a black eye was visible.

The attack, which has been claimed by an affiliate of the Islamic State group, is the deadliest in years on Russian soil.

Russian authorities arrested four suspected attackers Saturday and detained seven others on suspicion of involvement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the nation that night. He claimed they were captured while fleeing to Ukraine; Kyiv firmly denies this.

Family and friends of those still missing waited for news as Russia observed a day of national mourning Sunday.

Events at cultural institutions were canceled, flags were lowered to half-staff, and television entertainment and advertising were suspended, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. A steady stream of people added to a makeshift memorial near the burnt-out concert hall, creating a huge mound of flowers.

“People came to a concert, some people came to relax with their families, and any one of us could have been in that situation. And I want to express my condolences to all the families that were affected here, and I want to pay tribute to these people,” Andrey Kondakov, a mourner who came to lay flowers at the memorial, told the Associated Press.

“It is a tragedy that has affected our entire country,” kindergarten employee Marina Korshunova said. “It just doesn’t even make sense that small children were affected by this event.” Three children were among the dead.

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As rescuers continue to search the damaged building, and the death toll rises as more bodies are found, some families don’t know if relatives who went to Friday’s concert are alive. Moscow’s Department of Health said Sunday it has begun identifying bodies via DNA testing, which will take at least two weeks.

Igor Pogadaev was desperately seeking details of his wife’s whereabouts after she went to the concert and stopped responding to his messages. He hasn’t seen a message from Yana Pogadaeva since she sent two photos from the Crocus City Hall.

After Pogadaev saw reports of gunmen opening fire on concertgoers, he rushed to the site but couldn’t find her in the ambulances or among the hundreds of people who had made their way out of the venue.

“I went around, searched, I asked everyone, I showed photographs. No one saw anything; no one could say anything,” Pogadaev told the AP in a video message.

He watched flames bursting out of the building as he made frantic calls to a hotline for relatives of victims but received no information.

As the death toll mounted Saturday, Pogodaev scoured hospitals around Moscow, looking for information on newly admitted patients.

But his wife wasn’t among the 154 reported injured, nor on the list of 50 killed who have been identified by authorities, he said.

The Moscow Region’s Emergency Situations Ministry posted a video Sunday showing equipment dismantling the damaged music venue to give rescuers access.

Putin has called the attack “a bloody, barbaric terrorist act” and said Russian authorities captured the four suspects as they were trying to escape through a “window” prepared for them on the Ukrainian side of the border.

Russian media broadcast videos that apparently showed the detention and interrogation of the suspects, including one who told the cameras he was approached by an unidentified assistant to an Islamic preacher via a messaging app and paid to take part in the raid.

Putin didn’t mention the Islamic State in his speech to the nation. Kyiv accused him and other Russian politicians of falsely linking Ukraine to the assault to stoke fervor for the war there, which recently entered its third year.

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U.S. intelligence officials said they had confirmed the Islamic State affiliate’s claim.

“ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

The U.S. shared information with Russia in early March about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow and issued a public warning to Americans in the country, Watson said.

The attack was a major embarrassment for Putin and happened just days after he cemented his grip on the country for another six years in a vote that followed the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times.

Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities who have relentlessly suppressed opposition activities and muzzled independent media failed to prevent the attack, despite the U.S. warnings.

The Islamic State fought against Russia during its intervention in the Syrian civil war and has long targeted the country. In a statement posted by the group’s Aamaq news agency, the Afghanistan affiliate said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in Krasnogorsk.

The group issued a new statement Saturday on Aamaq, saying the attack was carried out by four men who used automatic rifles, a pistol, knives and firebombs. It said the assailants fired at the crowd and used knives to kill some, casting the raid as part of the Islamic State’s ongoing war with countries it says are fighting against Islam.

In October 2015, a bomb planted by the Islamic State downed a Russian passenger plane over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.

The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and parts of Africa, has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in past years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.