Suspects of Bombing Belarus Cafe Detained, Officials Deny Terrorism :: Charter'97 :: News

Five suspects of carrying out an explosion outside a cafe in the Belarusian city of Vitebsk have been arrested, officials said. According to Interfax news agency, the country’s Interior Ministry does not see any features of a terrorist act in the bombing.

“Judging by the scene of the crime we have reasons to believe that what happened was an act of malicious hooliganism or the result of careless handling of a homemade explosive device,” ministry spokesman Gennady Klepcha said in a formal statement.
Deputy head of Belarus’ KGB (Committee for State Security) Vasiliy Dementey said that the self-made explosive device was not powerful. It was filled with gunpowder and did not have a fuse.

46 people were wounded, including 25 who were hospitalized, four of those in intensive care, in Vitebsk on Friday Evening after a bomb buried in a flower bed outside the cafe exploded.

The cafe had an open-air structure set up to attract people in the summer and had a dance floor.

It was the second such attack in Vitebsk in less than two weeks. On Sept. 15, a beer can stuffed with nails and metal scraps was planted in a flower bed near a bus stop close to a theater. That blast wounded two people.