Memorial Wall to victims of explosion in Moscow to be unveiled on August 8th

A Memorial Wall to the victims of the terror act will be unveiled on Thursday, the second anniversary of the blast in the Pushkin Square underpass in Moscow.

On August 8, 2000, at about 6 p.m. Moscow time a blast went off in the Pushkin Square underpass -- it was a caseless explosive device with a force equivalent to 800 grams of TNT.

The investigation has established that on that day two unidentified men came up to kiosk No.52 in the underpass at about 17.50 Moscow time. After choosing some commodity, they said that they needed to change some currency in a nearby exchange office and left a diplomat case and a plastic bag near the kiosk. After that they ran out of the underpass, and a minute later the explosion went off.

Seven people were killed on the spot, another six died later in hospitals from sustained wounds and 118 people, including six children, received wounds of different gravity.

A criminal case was opened on the evidence of the explosion under articles providing for responsibility for premeditated murder and terrorism.

The Moscow prosecutors examined three main versions of the crime -- a business dispute, act of terrorism and hooliganism. In the course of a year more than 6,000 people who left Moscow on August 8 and 9, 2000, were checked for complicity in the blast. Fourteen criminal cases were opened and initiated as separate proceedings.

The secret services consider as the most probable cause of the blast the settling of accounts for trading space in the underpass (according to operational information, each kiosk in that place brought its owner a monthly profit of at least 10,000 dollars). Two men were detained on the case earlier, but one of them was released several hours after the interrogation ended and the other one spent a bit more than 24 hours in the isolation cell.

On the 40th day after the August 8 blast in the Pushkin Square underpass a plaque was opened in commemoration of its victims.

RIA Novosti was told in the Moscow mayor's office that the Memorial Wall to the victims of the act of terrorism committed on August 8th, 2000, with the names of all its victims will be erected in the Pushkin Square underpass.