The Southern District Military Court has begun considering a criminal case against two residents of the Moscow Region and nine residents of Ingushetia, accused of terrorist attacks on the head of the republican center for combating extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ibragim Eldzharkiev. He and his brother were shot on November 2, 2019 in Moscow. The defendants insist on their innocence in the crimes.
In Rostov-on-Don, the Southern District Military Court began considering a criminal case against 11 accused of organizing a terrorist community and participating in it, illegal trafficking in weapons and explosives, as well as committing terrorist attacks with the aim of encroaching on the life of the head of the center for combating extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Ingushetia Ibragim Eldzharkiev. He and his brother were shot on November 2, 2019 in Moscow. The prosecutor read the indictment. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
The main defendant is a resident of the Ingush village of Ekazhevo, businessman Khasan Polonkoev. According to investigators, he organized a terrorist community to kill a policeman and led them.
The first attack on Ibragim Eldzharkiev was committed in January 2019 on the Kavkaz highway. The car in which the policeman and three of his colleagues were traveling was fired upon.
One of Ibragim Eldzharkiev’s colleagues died from his wound, he himself was not injured.
The second attempt to kill the fighter against extremism was made by unknown people on November 2, 2019.
The killer opened fire in Moscow in the courtyard of a residential building. Ibragim Eldzharkiev died at the scene, and the policeman’s brother, Moscow doctor Akhmed Eldzharkiev, who was nearby, became a victim of the crime.
According to the official version, the attack in January 2019 was the work of local extremists, and according to the unofficial version, it was revenge for the death of Ibragim Belkhoroev, the leader of the Batalkhadzhin community, who was killed at the end of 2018. Relatives of Belkhoroev, who announced a reward of 30 million rubles, believed that the police could be involved in the crime. As Kommersant said earlier, the investigation checked and refuted this version.
In November-December 2019, the suspected assassins were arrested and taken into custody. Almost all the defendants, including the big businessman Khasan Polonkoev, who, according to the investigation, is the organizer of the attacks, turned out to be connected in one way or another with the Batalkhadzhins, an authoritative religious community in the republic named after Sheikh Batal-Khadzhi Belkhoroev.
Among those arrested was the son of the head of the Chamber of Control and Accounts of Ingushetia, Mustafa Belkhoroev, Alikhan. At the end of October 2022, Belkhoroev Sr. was detained at his home in Nazran on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons. Another authoritative batalkhadzhi resident, the former head of the Republican Social Insurance Fund Yakub Belkhoroev, was sentenced to nine years in the fall for embezzlement of budget funds.
The defense of the accused insists on their non-involvement in the crimes.
“You see that quite different people turned out to be in the dock – one worked in a taxi, others at a construction site, someone was engaged in farming, someone in sales and business. There are both elderly and young people, all with different levels of education – from the sixth grade of school to the presence of two higher education. Some met each other here in the courtroom. They have nothing in common except that they are members of the religious community named after Sheikh Batal-Khadzhi Belkhoroev. The reasons for criminal prosecution are different. For example, I believe that competitors in business or political activities simply settle scores with someone, ”said lawyer Nadezhda Ermolaeva in a conversation with Kommersant.
Five people were recognized as victims in the case. They didn’t show up for the process. The next meeting is scheduled for March 15th.