A woman suspected of beheading a child in her care before brandishing
the severed head outside a Moscow metro station says Allah had ordered
her to commit the crime.
Police on Monday wrestled to the ground
Gulchekhra Bobokulova after she wandered around a Moscow street holding
the child's severed head in the air and shouting Islamist slogans.
The 38-year-old divorced mother of three is from the Muslim-majority ex-Soviet state of Uzbekistan.
Eyewitnesses
said at the time they believed she was carrying out a terrorist act,
but since her detention, Russian investigators have raised the
possibility she might be suffering from mental illness.
Investigators
said she had been working as a nanny for a Moscow family, and that she
had murdered and beheaded one of the children in her care before setting
fire to the family flat and fleeing.
State television channels
did not report the incident, a move that drew accusations of censorship
from some opposition activists but which the Kremlin endorsed, saying it
would have been wrong to broadcast such "horrific images".
Bobokulova
told reporters on her way into the courtroom on Wednesday that Allah
had ordered her to do what she did but that she had repented and agreed
with her arrest.
Sat in the metal cage reserved for defendants in
Russian courts, Bobokulova waved and said: "I am Allah's messenger.
Hello everyone."
Her head was uncovered and she appeared relaxed,
occasionally yawning, in contrast to Monday when she had been dressed in
black and wearing a hijab.
Investigators have opened a criminal
case against Bobokulova, saying they formally suspect her of murder.
They have not mentioned suspecting her of any terrorism-related offence.
The
court agreed to detain her for two months while the investigation
continued after hearing that she presented an "exceptional risk to
public safety".
Investigators have said she will undergo psychiatric testing.
An
investigator said that to date no one else had been identified who was
involved in the crime. The judge spoke of possible accomplices still
being at large and hiding from the police, without giving details.
Some
rights activists have warned of a possible backlash in Russia against
migrant workers from Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan who have
in the past been targeted for beatings by far-right groups.
A
Communist Party website campaigning for tighter migration rules
displayed a picture on Wednesday of a black-clad woman wearing a burka
holding a severed head inside a red circle with a line through it to
indicate such individuals should be banned.
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