A deputy interior minister has confirmed that another bomb was found by police at the scene of Friday’s bombing in Minsk two hours before the explosion

Some 50 people were injured as a homemade bomb tore through a crowd during an Independence Day concert a little after midnight on July 4.

In an interview published by the Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belorussii on July 9, Alyaksandr Shchurko said that the unexploded device, hidden in a two-liter juice carton, had been discovered by concertgoers and given to policemen, who, in their turn, had put the carton “in a safe place.”

“They did not think that this was something serious,” the deputy minister was quoted as saying.

The detonated bomb was hidden in a one-liter juice carton. “We can suggest that the exploded device is identical to the one that was discovered and disarmed. So we have a sample, have enough information to be checked, have a trace left by the person who is believed to have stuffed and attempted to detonate the unexploded device,” General Shchurko said.

He denied reports that another “suspicious parcel” had been found at the scene about an hour after the blast. “We have no such information,” he said.

The deputy minister announced that “there is already a facial composite of the suspect but new witnesses are constantly appearing.” “For instance, the young people who have come to in hospitals. They are providing investigators with new information,” he was quoted as saying.

General Shchurko said that the perpetrator could be among the victims. “This is not ruled out. But you understand that not all victims have sought medical assistance. The perpetrator could be wounded but not hospitalized,” he noted.

Iryna LEWSHYNA