MOSCOW, March 3 (UPI) -- A nanny accused of walking the streets of Moscow with the severed head of a 4-year-old girl said she acted in order to seek revenge for the Muslims killed in Russia's airstrikes in Syria.
In a video that reportedly first appeared on YouTube, Gyulchekhra Bobokulova, a 38-year-old mother of three from the predominantly Muslim country of Uzbekistan, told an unidentified interviewer she had "taken revenge against those who themselves spilled blood."
Russian President Vladimir "Putin spilled blood, the planes were bombing," Bobokulova said in the video. "Why are Muslims being killed? They also want to live."
Bobokulova was arrested Monday after she was caught on video apparently carrying the severed head of Nastya, a 4-year-old girl who was in her care for 18 months. Officials said Bobokulova is mentally ill.
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The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily newspaper cited Uzbek police as saying Bobokulova had schizophrenia for more than a decade before she was employed as a nanny in Moscow. Bobokulova also said she recently broke up with her partner of 12 years in Uzbekistan after he began living with a second family.
In the video, she said she wanted to move to Syria but lacked the resources. When asked if she wanted to join the Islamic State or live in Raqqa, the presumed IS capital in Syria, Bobokulova said she "just wanted to live there."
In court Tuesday, she said "Allah ordered" her to kill the girl. When asked if she accepted her guilt, Bobokulova replied, "yes."
Police investigators told Moscow's Presnensky district court they have not found anyone else involved in the case, but said they believed Bobokulova was "incited" to commit the alleged crimes by instigators yet to be detained.
"Suspected accomplices, specifically the instigators, are currently at large," an investigator told the court. Bobokulova was held without bail and will remain in custody until at least April 29.
