MINSK, Belarus – The authoritarian president of Belarus angrily refuted allegations Saturday the government was behind a subway bombing in the capital that killed 13 and wounded more than 200 others.
Monday’s bombing in Minsk puzzled terrorism experts who have struggled to speculate on possible motives in a tightly-controlled country with little history of attacks on such a scale.
Some bloggers have speculated that authorities may have resorted to terrorism to distract Belarusians from the country’s poor economic state.
But President Alexander Lukashenko said in a televised address that “only idiots” would accuse the government.
“What they are saying — that this was done to distract the attention from the economic situation — only idiots and scoundrels would make such judgments,” he said. “Is the situation in the country so critical that I have to resort to desperate measures? It is not critical.”
Authorities have arrested five suspects in connection with the blast, including a man in his mid-20s accused of placing the bomb on the platform of Minsk’s busiest subway station. Investigators haven’t said who ordered the bombing.
Fears have grown over the days since the bombing that it is being used as a pretext to stamp out the last vestiges of political pluralism and
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