A Moscow court has extended the pre-trial detention of the suspect in a St. Petersburg cafe bombing that killed a prominent pro-war blogger earlier this year, Russian media reported Friday.
Daria Trepova, 26, was detained in April after a bomb planted inside a gilded bust she presented to blogger Vladlen Tatarsky exploded during an event at a St. Petersburg cafe. The blast killed Tatarsky and injured 40 others, sparking calls for revenge among Russia’s pro-war figures.
Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled to keep Trepova in custody until Dec. 3, according to the Ostorozhno Novosti news channel on the Telegram messaging app.
The hearing on terrorism charges took place behind closed doors due to an ongoing investigation into Trepova’s presumed accomplices, the channel said.
There has been much debate about whether Trepova, believed to be a well-known figure in St. Petersburg’s feminist and opposition community, was behind the attack or merely used by a third party to deliver the explosives.
Russian authorities claim that Trepova acted on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence and jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's associates, which Navalny's team has denied.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said Trepova had jointly planned the assassination with Ukrainian citizen Yuri Denisov, who it said fled to Turkey the day after Tatarsky’s assassination.
Investigators have wrapped up their criminal probe into Trepova and plan to transfer her from Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison back to Moscow.
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