Bekzat Abdinasir uulu. Photo: TASS
The Second Western District Military Court in Moscow has found 30-year-old Kyrgyz citizen Bekzat Abdinasir uulu guilty of justifying those accused of carrying out the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue. On February 19, the migrant was sentenced to three years in prison, according to TASS.
In early April 2024, Abdinasir uulu posted a comment under videos of the initial interrogations of the terrorists in the Telegram channel Migrants.ru, saying: “Brave guys, you need great courage for such an act, too bad they got caught” (punctuation preserved).
Bekzat was arrested on November 8 and sent to Moscow’s Detention Center No. 4. He was placed on Russia’s financial monitoring list of extremists and terrorists. The investigation revealed that he was residing in Russia in violation of migration laws. He worked as a low-voltage systems installer at Atrium but was unemployed by the time the verdict was announced.
A forensic examination found that Abdinasir uulu had some individual psychological traits, but experts noted these did not influence his actions during the offense.
In court, Abdinasir uulu required a translator to interpret from Russian into his native language. The defendant fully admitted his guilt, cooperated with the investigation, and expressed remorse—factors considered as mitigating circumstances. During the closing arguments, the prosecutor requested a four-year prison sentence.
The court took into account the time Abdinasir uulu had already spent in custody, applying a “day-for-day” formula, and ultimately sentenced him to three years in a general-regime penal colony.
Additionally, the court banned him from administering websites for two years, confiscated his mobile phone, and ordered his SIM card to be destroyed. The sentence has not yet come into force and can still be appealed.
👉 A week earlier, on February 12, a court in Primorsky Krai fined a local woman in a similar case. She had posted a message in a community chat in March 2024 justifying the ideology and practices of terrorism in relation to the Crocus City Hall attack. She was fined 320,000 rubles.
ℹ️ The Crocus City Hall terrorist attack took place on March 22, 2024, in Krasnogorsk, outside Moscow, shortly before a concert by the rock band Piknik. Several armed individuals in camouflage stormed the venue, opened fire on the crowd, then reached the concert hall, where they set a fire that engulfed all four floors and the roof before fleeing in the same car they had arrived in. The attack claimed 145 lives.
A total of 27 individuals have been charged in connection with the attack, including the four attackers, three people who sold them a car, and those who rented them an apartment or sent them money. The case involves over 1,700 victims and 800 witnesses.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State’s Afghan branch (also known as ISIS-K, Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIL-Khorasan). This organization is recognized as a terrorist group and banned in Russia and many other countries.
