Russian police wrestled to the ground a woman in a hijab brandishing the severed head of a child outside a Moscow metro station on Monday and charged her with murder, in an incident that stirred fears of an Islamist terrorist attack.
The macabre episode was caught on camera by passers-by, with
footage showing the unnamed woman in a black hijab wandering
around in the street holding an infant’s severed head high in
the air.
“I am a terrorist, I want your death,” she can be heard screaming in heavily accented Russian in a rambling tirade in which she appears to criticise democracy and talk about the end of the world.
The Investigative Committee released a statement saying the 38-year-old woman was arrested under suspicion of killing the 3 or 4-year-old in an apartment near the metro station in northwestern Moscow and then setting the apartment on fire.
Investigators said they thought the woman had been working as a nanny for the victim’s family.
Given the clearly deranged behaviour of the detainee, investigators swiftly ordered her to undergo psychiatric tests to establish whether she is capable of understanding the significance of her actions.Statement by Investigative Committee, Moscow
News agencies cited an unnamed police source as saying the
woman appeared to have been under the influence of psychotropic
drugs.
Immigration authorities told media the woman was from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan and had been working in Moscow illegally.
(With agency inputs)
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