A Russian military court has sentenced four men from Tajikistan and 11 others to life in prison for the Moscow concert hall attack that killed 149 people in March 2024, state news agency TASS reported. The mass shooting and fire at Crocus City Hall, on Moscow’s outskirts, was the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades.
The verdicts cap a case that saw 19 people charged in total. The remaining four defendants received prison terms ranging from 19 to 22 years, according to the RIA state news agency. Families of some victims were in the courtroom as the sentences were handed down. As is customary in such cases in Russia, the trial was held behind closed doors.
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The attack unfolded on March 22, shortly before a scheduled performance by Soviet-era rock band Picnic. Assailants opened fire after entering the venue, then set the building ablaze, trapping many inside. More than 600 people were wounded, and six children were among the dead.
The Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, often referred to as ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the massacre. The incident came two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and days after the United States publicly warned of an imminent extremist attack in Moscow, a warning Russian officials publicly dismissed at the time.
Following the verdict, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had “reliably established” that the assault was “planned and committed in the interests of” Ukraine. The committee also accused the men of plotting additional attacks in Russia’s Dagestan region.
The life sentences reflect the scale of the bloodshed at Crocus City Hall, a sprawling entertainment complex that became a scene of chaos as flames spread and thick smoke filled the auditorium. Emergency services battled the blaze as terrified concertgoers tried to escape. The toll, officials said, made the attack Russia’s worst mass-casualty terror incident in more than 20 years.
Moscow has maintained heightened security measures since the March attack, even as the investigation moved out of public view. Proceedings unfolded in military court and largely beyond the scrutiny of independent observers, a familiar pattern in Russia’s handling of high-profile terrorism cases.
The sentencing brings legal closure to the core criminal case tied to the Crocus City Hall assault, though political reverberations are likely to persist. The claim of responsibility by ISIS-K and the post-verdict assertion by Russian investigators about alleged Ukrainian links underscore how the attack has been drawn into broader regional and geopolitical narratives. For families of the victims, the punishments mark an end to one chapter of a tragedy that reshaped their lives — and a reminder of the night a concert venue became the site of one of Russia’s darkest episodes.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
