Suspected grenade detonates in Moldova crowd, injuring 40 (Roundup)

Oct 15, 2009, 12:36 GMT

   Chisinau - An explosion, believed to be caused by a hand grenade, in a crowded Moldovan city square injured 40, the Infotag news agency reported Thursday.

   A man admitting to having set off an explosion reportedly surrendered to Chisinau police late Thursday morning.

   He allegedly was frustrated with official unwillingess to review a seven-year jail sentence handed down to his son, according to an Interfax report.

   The blast occurred late Wednesday evening at the Arch of Triumph monument in the centre of the Moldovan capital Chisinau.

   Metal fragments from the explosion left 37 victims hospitalized, Internal Affairs Minister Viktor Katan said.

   Most of the victims were Chisinau youths, the majority receiving injuries to their legs or arms. Eighteen remained hospitalized Thursday, with four in serious but stable condition, according to an Infotag report.

   Tens of thousands of people were on Chisinau's streets on Wednesday evening celebrating Day of the City, a local holiday.

   A street rock concert was in progress in Triumphal Arch square at 10:30 pm (1930 GMT), the time of the explosion.

   Pop groups from Russia, Romania and Moldova reportedly continued playing for another 30 minutes, until police ordered the concert stopped.

   A police investigation of the blast site uncovered 'extremely strong evidence' that a Soviet-era RG-42 hand grenade caused the explosion, Katan said.

   Police were questioning the man who claimed to have set off the grenade. They would not comment on whether he was considered a suspect.

   The explosion most likely was intentional, and a terrorism charge was likely against whomever set it off, said Valery Zubko, Moldova's prosecutor general.

   Vladimir Filat, Moldova's newly elected prime minister, in the hours before the Wednesday blast, received two telephone calls to his office from an unidentified man threatening violence, said Igor Volinsky, Filat's spokesman.

   Moldova media on Thursday were quick to recall September comments by former President Vladimir Voronin, head of the opposition Communist Party, who threatened Filat in parliament with the words 'You can go to Hell! We'll deal with you another way!'

   Political retributition is an unlikely motive for the bombing, Katan said.

   A civil war between Moldova's majority Romanian-speakers and minority Russian-speakers ended in 1992 with the de facto secession of the Transdniestria province.

   Tensions between Moldova and Transdniestria remain high, but war- related violence is uncommon along a ceasefire line between the two sides' militaries and rare in towns and cities.