Two explosions in a supermarket full of people in the very center of Riga – it ended the working day 20 years ago, on August 17, 2000, on Thursday. Such brutal crimes were not experienced in Latvia even in the infamous 1990s, when bombings between criminal groups were almost commonplace. “There has been a desire to pay the utmost attention to the number of victims in this act of terrorism.” For the day Acting Prime Minister Anatoly Gorbunov expressed his opinion on what happened. “This is the first act of terrorism in Latvia, in which dozens of civilians have been severely affected,” wrote Inta Lase, Gunta Sloga and Ināra Egle. “The explosion at the Riga department store was one of the main news items on CNN’s Thursday night news release.”
Explosions in the department store Center took place ten minutes apart at the store’s first-floor Finnish shed. The first explosion struck at 17.29. Shop Rimi cashier For the day told that at the time of the explosion, she had spent money on a buyer. “I got a penny on all sides and fell in a chair. At first it seemed that someone had overturned the big stand, but looking to the left, I saw people bleeding. I was shocked and stunned sitting. Then a colleague came and took me out. When we were already at the front door, I heard a second explosion. “
Appointment Rimi employee For the day crying, she said that just a few meters from her floor, a large ceiling lamp had fallen: “I was in such shock that I could not even move, and I feel bad, thinking that just a few minutes before the explosion I was standing right under the lamp.” Vyacheslav, who was on the stairs to the second floor at the time of the explosion, said that a wave of explosions had knocked him off his feet: and helped them out. ” Store visitor Inguna For the day told me she was on the second floor at the time of the explosion: “It seemed to me that someone had knocked down a heavy closet or scenery. The family was embracing and seeming to freeze. But then the salespeople took us all out the side door in an organized manner.”
Police arrived at the scene a few minutes after the explosion, along with shop staff to help evacuate shop visitors and take out the wounded. But then there was a second explosion. The head of the criminal police Valdis Pumpurs also suffered minor injuries. Most of the visitors to the store had already been evacuated.
Police put forward two versions immediately after the incident. Most plausible, an explosion is an act of terrorism aimed at instilling a sense of fear and insecurity in society. The second version – business invoicing. This version was considered unlikely since the explosions of the company Linstow Varner, owning a department store Center, was not threatened. Chief of the State Police Juris Rekšņa admitted that the second explosion could be aimed directly at law enforcement officers. This version could be reinforced by the fact that the Riga Central Police Department is only a minute’s walk from the department store. Center.
Dita Arāja informed that six people had been seriously injured in the explosion, including Rimi Baltija General Director Knut Kviskviks, who was close to the exit at the time of the explosion. He suffered burns and fractures
Inta Lase on the same August 18th Day informed that the explosion in the department store Center is the eighth explosion in Riga this year. The June 10 explosion between Brasa and Zemitan stations, which had no casualties, suggested possible terrorism. The responsibility for this explosion had been taken by anonymous “fighters of democratic Latvia”, threatening a new “rail war”.
What happened in the department store Center was widely covered in the world media. In the main evening news program of the Russian television company NTV, the report from Riga was the only story that was not related to the Russian nuclear submarine that sank in the Barents Sea. Kursk crew rescue. Day the exploration of the explosion was extensively described in subsequent issues. One person lost his life in the biggest terrorist attack in Latvia – on August 21, Maija Pušmucāne, an employee of a Finnish storage facility, died at the clinical burn center of Karolinska Hospital in Sweden. On October 24, 2001, upon entering Latvia, the main suspect Leonard Butelis was arrested (later he changed his surname to Gromov). In 2003, a district court found him guilty of inserting a second bomb and sentenced him to eight years in prison. In 2004, a decision of the Supreme Court acquitted Gromov, and the case against him was terminated due to lack of evidence.
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