Story highlights
- Explosive device defused in St. Petersburg, days after a deadly bomb attack on the city's metro system
- Three Central Asian men who had contacts with metro bomber Akbarzhov Jalilov arrested
Moscow (CNN)Russian authorities defused an explosive device found in a St. Petersburg apartment Thursday, days after a deadly bomb attack on the city's metro system.
"An explosive device was found, it has been defused," said Konstantin Serov, head of the city's Nevsky district administration, according to reports by the state-run TASS news agency.
Fourteen people were killed Monday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives on a metro train between the Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations.
Authorities in St. Petersburg arrested three Central Asian men who had contacts with bomber Akbarzhov Jalilov, Deputy City Administration of Nevsky district Vladimir Gaidei told CNN.
The building was evacuated early Thursday, upon discovery of the device in a one-room apartment, but most residents are now back in their apartments.
"Orders have been given to return [the evacuated] residents; everything is safe up to the seventh floor," Serov said, according to TASS, adding that investigators are still working on the eighth and ninth floors of the building.
He added that the current occupants were not the owners of the one-room apartment and "time will be needed to find out how they found out to be there."
