Head of inquiries into Saint Petersburg metro blast, Zimnyaya Vishnya fire to study Kerch shooting - newspaper
MOSCOW. Oct 18 (Interfax) - An ad hoc team led by Maj. Gen. Sergei Golkin will study yesterday's attack at a school in Kerch, the newspaper Kommersant reported on Thursday.
"The motivation behind the actions of the young man who attacked his classmates and teachers is being studied by an investigative team of the deputy head of the Russian Investigative Committee's Main Directorate for High-Profile Crimes and head of the Investigative Department, Justice Maj. Gen. Sergei Golkin," Kommersant said.
According to the newspaper, Golkin supervised the inquiries into the fire at the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping mall in Kemerovo, the St. Petersburg metro attack, the Russian plane bombing above the Sinai Peninsula, the killing of former deputy of the Krasnodar Territorial Legislative Assembly Sergei Zirinov, and other high-profile crimes.
Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin is overseeing the inquiry into the Kerch school shooting, and Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov has sent leading terrorism experts to Crimea.
Possible connections of Vladislav Roslyakov, who perpetrated the attack, to extremists are being looked into, including possible contacts with the Ukrainian Right Sector and UNA-UNSO (both of which are banned in Russia), sources told the newspaper.
No proof that Roslyakov held extremist views has been found so far, the newspaper said.
"It could be a conflict with classmates and teachers," a source close to the investigators told Kommersant.
Preparations for the attack lasted several months, the source said.
"Roslyakov turned 18 in August and almost immediately applied for a hunting gun license. The license was issued in September after a medical check," the newspaper reported.
According to the most recent reports, 20 people were killed in the bombing-and-shooting incident at the Kerch Polytechnic School on Wednesday. A criminal case was initially opened on counts of terrorism, but it emerged later that Roslyakov, who committed suicide, was the perpetrator. The case was redefined as murder.