There are two basic conjectures on the Grozny tragedy, Sergei Fridinsky, federal Deputy Prosecutor General, said to the media in the Chechen capital today. The blast may have aimed to intimidate the public on a red-letter day-or to kill off the republican top.
Mr. Fridinsky showed newsmen another two explosive devices, which did not go off and were found on the crime site-a standard artillery shell and a makeshift plastic bottle mine. The toll of lives would have been much worse if all the three blasted, he said.
The V-E Day blast at the Dynamo stadium in Grozny, during a gala concert, hit a total 73, the republican prosecutor's officers announced on a previous occasion. Four died on the spot and two in hospital, the others were injured.
The blast killed republican President Ahmad Kadyrov; Hussein Isayev, republican State Council President; journalist Adlan Hassanov, two presidential bodyguards, and a little girl of eight. Colonel-General Valeri Baranov, in command of federal troops deployed in the North Caucasus, was badly wounded, and has a leg amputated.
