MOSCOW (Interfax) — The Moscow City Court extended the arrest for the alleged organizer of the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg metro Abror Azimov and his brother Akram until October 3. Currently, 11 people are the defendants in the case, all of them are under arrest.

The term of the arrest, according to the decision, was also extended for eight other defendants: Bakhram Ergashev, Azamzhon Makhmudov, Shokhista Karimova, Mukhamadyusuf Mirzaalimov, Dilmurod Muidinov, Seifulla Hakimov, Ibragimzhon Ermatov and Sodik Ortikov.

As an investigator explained in the court, the investigation of the case was at the final stage, however, the grounds for prolonging the arrest for the defendants have not disappeared: they, as the investigators believe, may still disappear or obstruct the proceedings.

As a result of explosion of a homemade bomb in a subway train in St. Petersburg on April 3, 2017, at least 16 people were killed, including an alleged terrorist, and more than 50 were injured. The investigation believes that a suicide bomber, a native of Kyrgyzstan Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, blew up the bomb.

The investigation believes that the organizer of the terrorist attack was Abror Azimov, and his older brother Akram was an intermediary, who took money for the crime in Turkey from a member of an international terrorist organization.

As the Russian BBC service reported, Katiba Tawhid Wal-Jihad group organized the terrorist attack. Its leader is a native of Kyrgyzstan, nicknamed Abu Salah, an Uighur. His real name is supposedly Sirozhiddin Mukhtarov. He was born in 1990 in Kashgar-Kyshtak village, Osh region. In the early 2000s, he received a theological education in Syria. Having returned to Kyrgyzstan, he worked as an assistant to an Imam in one of the mosques in Osh. In 2012, in Syria, he joined Kathibat Imam al-Bukhari group and created Katiba Tawhid Wal-Jihad from its supporters.