John Helmer has a bit on this:
You beat me on this. There is much more to it, and many more questions. For example:
- Is there any truth to claims that there are about 100 people still missing but not officially mentioned?
- Question about all necessary permissions for first, building the Hall, and then using it for public events. Several official answered the first question positively, but all documents need to be thoroughly checked. Corruption is more than likely. The second question is partly covered by Helmer. Again, officials and Agalarovs say everything worked while there are multiple witnesses' testimonies to the contrary.
- Question about the existence of the building insurance, still not answered AFAIK. Emin claims it was, but only for 1/30 - 1/40 of the amount of damage. Given that CCH is pledged on a loan from Gazprombank, more problems can arise, for the bank included.
- Questions about the delayed arrival of special forces. The first '112' calls from the attendees came a few mins after the horror started. Medics and fire brigades arrived very quickly. According to many sources and various outlets' timeline, special forces arrived about 45 min AFTER the criminals had left the building and over 1h after the attack started (about 19:55 Moscow time and it lasted 18 mins.)
The Insider:
The entire attack takes 18 minutes. At 20:13, the vehicle — with the four terrorists inside —
leaves the parking area.
RuWiki, transl:
According to a TASS report from 20:33, "the Moscow units of the SOBR and riot police have been raised on the command "alarm", they are heading to the place." As of 21:01, according to the same news agency, the SOBR and riot police were still on the way.
A rather strange statement on
RT reads:
After shooting people in Crocus City Hall and setting the building on fire, they did not attack the special forces which arrived at the scene and instead got in a car and fled from Moscow.
It also seems that the firefighters waited with entering the building, afraid that the attackers were still inside.
Here we come to Emin Agalarov, who claims he “
entered the building 40 minutes after the first shots were fired ... and the fire safety system was working" ... We went inside several times and spent more than 30 minutes there, went through all the evacuation corridors, which were not smoky at that time". But according to the timeline, it was "reported at 20:44 that the roof of the building began to collapse, and firefighters still could not start extinguishing the building until the arrival of a special forces team." Isn't it "interesting"?
Also, spectators who were on the mezzanine and balcony said that the emergency exits at Crocus were closed during the terrorist attack, while others reported that some doors were closed too and they had to break through.
From
Mash, translated:
21:00 - more than 50 ambulances and other special services were on the scene. OMON and SOBR are preparing for an assault.
21:14 - rescuers evacuate people from the burning roof of the building.
21:30 - firefighting helicopters are drawing water from the Pavshinskaya floodplain to extinguish the roof of the Crocus.
- According to some sources, Araz Agalarov (Emin's father) is Azerbaijani ex-"vor v zakone" ("thief in law", think: "godfather") turned into businessman-billioner (was 55th on Forbes list). He crossed his paths with God Nisanov, another Azerbaijani entrepreneur somewhen in late 1980's or early 1990's. At some point, Nisanov, infamous Moscow food-market king turned to Agalarov and Azer mafia for solving his problems with officials, competitors, and gangs. Around his "Crocus Group" there was a scandal after scandal involving Agalarov and officials, investigations and cover-ups. Many of his state contracted constructions were faulty and caused problems. Not long ago, there was a scandal with illegal poaching hunting for bears and cubs for restaurants, including those belonging to the empire of the Araz and Emin Agalarov family. Investigation against engaged in the crime federal institution officials was blocked and the whole thing hushed up.
BTW, originally, right after the tragedy, he allegedly considered himself a victim and expected the government (i.e. taxpayers) fund his Crocus reconstruction project. Met with a loud and wide outrage, he changed his tune and said that reconstruction will depend on the authorities decision. I'll stop here, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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I don't think Putin will be able to hold the masterminds and organisers accountable, but if some serious purging within the corrupt structures can follow, it itself can prevent some further disasters.
PS/ Never saw so heavily edited Wiki entries as the Russian entry on the attack. There are still a few versions whos timestamps precede cited sources. Most of the history is fake now, as it seems. I didn't know it's possible, but saw part of it happening in real time, for example the very first version of March 22 citing an article published only 2 days later. At some point there was over 1K edits with messed up chronological order, including some edits dated March 1; must have caught it during the final cleaning.