MOSCOW, August 26 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – The Presnensky District Court of Moscow has detained Aram Petrosyan charged with taking hostages in a branch of Citibank in Moscow, until October 24, RAPSI reports from the courtroom on Friday.

Petrosyan’s defense asked the court to put him under house arrest, noting that the accused had admitted his guilt and was ready to cooperate with investigators.

According to investigators, on the evening of August 24 Petrosyan entered a branch of Citibank at Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in central Moscow, where he took four people hostage. He threatened to trigger explosion of an object resembling a bomb. After several hours he released all hostages and surrendered. Bomb that he threatened to explode turned out to be a hoax.

The Investigative Committee stated that Petrosyan wanted to bring attention to his problem and did not want to kill anyone. Later he admitted his guilt in full and provided testimony against himself.

Before capture of hostages, a video has been released on the Internet, featuring a man resembling the one who took hostages. Video message was published under the name of Aram Petrosyan. In particular, he said that on August 24 he is going to commit "a violation of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation". He said that he intends to commit a crime because of bankruptcy, which, according to him, turned into epidemic in Russia.

He demanded Russian authorities to create a body that would deal with the issue of bankruptcy.