Four people detained in Ukraine on suspicion of organizing bomb attacks, which injured dozens in the city of Dnepropetrovsk in April, threatened more attacks unless they were paid money, Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) chief Ihor Kalinin said on Friday.
Ten bombs rocked Dnepropetrovsk on April 27, injuring 30 people, including eleven teenagers. Investigators did not rule out political motives behind the blasts, but also said the suspects demanded $4.5 million after the attack.
Kalinin said the SBU had transferred a sum of money to their banking account.
“We even allowed them to withdraw a certain amount of the sum,” Kalinin said adding that the attacks were not aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country ahead of the 2012 Euro Cup, which Ukraine jointly hosts with Poland this month.
“There is no evidence that the explosions were desigend to destabilize the situation in Ukraine before Euro-2012. The only thing they demanded was money,” he added.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka earlier said the suspects were sending threats via the Internet. They were “threatening new explosions and new human casualties, including children,” he said.
After the blasts, which prosecutors classified as an act of terrorism, police circulated identikits of the four suspects. Two of them were detained on May 31 and the other two on June 1.
