Russian massacre suspects' homeland is plagued by poverty and religious strife

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The four men charged with the have been identified by authorities as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate to Russia each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences.

Along with grinding poverty, Tajikistan is rife with religious tensions. Hard-line Islamists were one of the main forces opposing the government in a 1990s civil war that devastated the country. The militants claiming responsibility for the Moscow — a branch of the Islamic State group in neighboring Afghanistan — reportedly recruit heavily from Tajikistan.

The four suspects who were arraigned in a Moscow court late Sunday on appeared to have been beaten or injured during their detention. One was wheeled in on a gurney clad only in a hospital gown.

Here is a look at the people, militant groups and political history connected to the Moscow attack:

The eldest defendant is Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, 32, who may have been living in Russia illegally. He was shown sitting in a glass cage in the courtroom with a black eye and bruised face.

In this photo released by the Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service, Russian Emergency Ministry rescuers work inside the Crocus City Hall on the western edge of Moscow, Russia, Saturday, March 23, 2024, following an attack Friday, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)

Mirzoyev reportedly had obtained a three-month residency permit in the city of Novosibirsk, but it had expired. In video of his interrogation shared on Russian social media, he reportedly says he recently was living in a Moscow hostel with another of the suspects. The court said he is married and has four children, but it was unclear if he was employed.

Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, 30, is apparently unemployed. Registered as a resident in Russia, he could not remember in what city, according to Russian news reports. When he appeared in court, his head was awkwardly bandaged after Russian officers reportedly sawed off one of his ears.

Shamsidin Fariduni, 25, apparently had the most stable life of the four suspects. He was registered in Krasnogorsk, the Moscow suburb where the killings took place, and worked in a flooring factory. He reportedly told interrogators that he was offered 500,000 rubles (about $5,425) to carry out the attack — the equivalent of about 2.5 years of the average wage in Tajikistan.

Mukhammadsobir Fayzov, 19, was brought into the courtroom on a gurney, with a catheter attached and one eye injured or missing, and he appeared to fade in an out of consciousness. He had worked as an apprentice in a barbershop in the declining textile-mill city of Ivanovo, but reports said he left that job in November.

FILE - A national flag of Tajikistan is hoisted to the top of the 165-meter (541.34 feet) flagpole in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Tuesday, May 24, 2011. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Olga Tutubalina, File)

As many as 1.5 million Tajik migrants are estimated to be in Russia after fleeing the poverty and unemployment that plague their landlocked, mountainous country. An array of mineral resources are present in Tajikistan, but the industry has been slow to develop because of belated foreign investment and poor geological data, among other factors.

Although its nearly 10 million people are overwhelmingly Muslim, tensions connected to Islam are rife.

Islamists were a key opponent during a 1992-97 civil war in which the government killed as many as 150,000 people and devastated the economy. When the war ended, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon took steps to sharply curtail religious freedoms.

The government limited how many mosques could be built, prohibited women and children under 18 from attending mosques at all, and banned religious instruction outside the home for children. Critics say the limits encouraged people to turn to underground and radical Muslim factions via the internet.

Tajikistan has not made any official statement about the arrest of the four men suspected in the attack. But Rahmon was quoted by his government's press service as telling Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call that “terrorists have neither nationality, nor a homeland, nor religion.”

Most attacks tied to Islamic extremists that afflicted Russia in the past quarter century were committed by Chechen separatists, such as the 2004 Beslan school seizure that killed more than 300 people — or were blamed on them, as in the 1999 apartment bombings that triggered the second Russia-Chechnya war.

People place flowers at a makeshift memorial in front of the Crocus City Hall on the western outskirts of Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 25, 2024. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlyanichenko)

But attacks that began in 2015 were claimed by or attributed to the Islamic State group. The group opposed Russia’s intervention in Syria, where Moscow sought to tip the balance in favor of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

After IS declared a caliphate in large parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, thousands of men and women from around the world came to join the extremist group. Those included thousands from the former Soviet Union, among them hundreds from Tajikistan.

One of the most prominent figures to join IS was Gulmurod Khalimov, who was an officer with Tajikistan’s special forces before defecting and joining IS in Syria in 2015. In 2017, the Russian military said Khalimov was killed in a Russian airstrike in Syria.

IS claimed responsibility for the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner that was bringing tourists home from the Egyptian resort Sharm al-Sheik. Two years later, it claimed to be behind the suicide bombing of a subway train in St. Petersburg that killed 15 people.

Two weeks before the Moscow theater massacre, Russian officials said they had wiped out members of an IS cell that was planning to attack a synagogue. Earlier in the month, it reported killing six IS fighters in the Ingushetia region adjacent to Chechnya.

Mukhammadsobir Faizov, a suspect in Friday's shooting at the Crocus City Hall, sits in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 24, 2024. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Shamsidin Fariduni, a suspect in the Crocus City Hall shooting on Friday sits in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 24, 2024. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A suspect in the Crocus City Hall shooting on Friday sits in a courtroom in the Basmanny District Court, in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 24, 2024. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, a suspect in the Crocus City Hall shooting on Friday, sits in a glass cage in the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 24, 2024. The four men charged with the massacre at a Moscow theater have been identified by the Russian government as citizens of Tajikistan, some of the thousands who migrate each year from the poorest of the former Soviet republics to scrape out marginal existences. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

In this photo taken from video released by Investigative Committee of Russia on Sunday, March 24, 2024, a suspect in the Crocus City Hall shooting on Friday is escorted to the Russian Investigative Committee headquarters in Moscow, Russia. (Investigative Committee of Russia via AP)

LONDON (AP) — A man accused of brandishing a sword in a rampage in London that killed a teenage boy, severely injured two police officers and wounded two men appeared in court Thursday to face charges of murder and attempted murder.

Marcus Arduini Monzo, 36, who has dual Spanish and Brazilian citizenship, is charged with murder in the death of Daniel Anjorin, 14, who was slain as he walked to school Tuesday morning in a northeast London suburb.

Prosecutor David Burns said Monzo crashed his van in Hainault before 7 a.m. Tuesday, striking a man. He then got out of the van and told the man he would kill him before cutting his neck.

He then broke into a home nearby, where a couple was asleep with their 4-year-old daughter. He shouted about believing in God and attacked the girl’s father, wounding his neck and arm.

Monzo then ambushed Anjorin, slashing his neck and stabbing him in the chest as he lay on the ground.

When police officers arrived and tried to help the boy, Monzo jumped from bushes and bolted, Burns said. The officers gave chase and Monzo lunged at a female constable, who received “horrifically serious injuries," police Commissioner Mark Rowley told LBC Radio.

Rowley acknowledged that the officer nearly lost a hand and said surgeons spent hours “basically putting her arm back together."

The woman officer's partner also suffered serious arm and hand injuries in the confrontation.

Reinforcements from the force later cornered Monzo and used a stun gun to subdue him and take him into custody.

Police have said the incident was not treated as terrorism-related and that it didn’t appear to be targeted.

Monzo, wearing a gray sweatsuit and holding his left arm across his chest from his injury in the van crash, did not enter a plea in Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was held in custody. Another hearing was scheduled Tuesday in the Central Criminal Court known as the Old Bailey.

He is charged with two counts each of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm along with single counts of aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article.

The court appearance came as London voters go to the polls to elect their mayor and local council members after a campaign where crime and trust in the capital’s police force were major issues.

Rowley, who leads the Metropolitan Police Service, applauded his officers for running toward danger. He said they arrived 12 minutes after receiving the first call and the suspect was detained 10 minutes later.

This court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook shows Marcus Arduini Monzo appearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, Thursday May 2, 2024. Monzo, accused of brandishing a sword in a rampage in London that killed a teenage boy, severely injured two police officers and wounded two men appeared in court Thursday to face charges of murder and attempted murder. (Elizabeth Cook/PA via AP)

Suspect in London sword attack appears in court on murder charge in death of teenage boy

Handout footage from a doorbell camera of police officers tasering a sword-wielding man in Hainault, north east London, after a 14-year-old boy died after being stabbed following an attack on members of the public and two police officers, Tuesday April 30, 2024. (PA via AP)

Suspect in London sword attack appears in court on murder charge in death of teenage boy