At the same time, the defense considered his guilt unproven and asked to be acquitted. Isaev himself urged to judge him by deeds, “and not by someone’s false words and rumors”
In the 2nd Western District Military Court, the criminal case of the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Kizlyar district of Dagestan, Colonel Gazi Isaev (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring) has entered the final stage. During the debate, the prosecutor stated that he considers proven the guilt of the defendant in involvement in the preparation in 2010 of explosions at the Moscow metro stations “Lubyanka” and “Park Kultury”, which claimed the lives of 39 people. For the ex-silovik, the state prosecutor Roman Boldyrev requested the most severe of the existing punishments – a life sentence.
In turn, the defendant’s lawyer Eldar Khastinov insisted that “reliable, sufficient and admissible evidence of guilt” of Isaev was not presented during the process, which lasted from December 19, and asked him to be acquitted. It took the prosecutor less than half an hour to sum up the process. He stated that the version of the investigation found its full confirmation.
Help for militants
Recalling the plot of the accusation, Boldyrev said that in 2009 Isaev, being an official (at that time he was the deputy head of the criminal police department of the Kizlyar district of Dagestan), joined the criminal community. He shared the ideology of radical Islam, which was professed by members of the Caucasus Emirate organization, recognized as a terrorist organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to the prosecutor, Isaev divulged official information to the bandits, in particular about the counter-terrorist operation against the militants. The latter set as their goal the creation of a Sharia state on the territory of the North Caucasus region.
“As a result, the participants (of the gang underground), having received a plan of operational measures, fled from the places of their conduct and detention,” he said. In addition, according to the prosecutor, Isaev transported armed bandits and gang leaders to participate in meetings on the territory of Dagestan, at one of which it was decided to carry out terrorist attacks in the capital.
And in March 2009, Isaev brought one of the suicide bombers – Maryam Sharipova (wife of the leader of the underground Magomedali Vagabov, killed in 2010) from an “unidentified household” in the Kizlyar district of Dagestan to the place of departure of an intercity bus in Kizlyar, from where she left for Moscow. Who organized the dispatch to the capital of the second suicide bomber, Dzhennet Abdulaeva, has not been established.
Early in the morning of March 29, 2010, suicide bombers set off bombs in train cars – first at the Lubyanka metro station, then at the Park Kultury. “I draw your attention to the fact that 39 people died then (as well as two terrorists. – Business FM), 128 citizens received bodily injuries of varying severity, and FSUE Moscow Metro suffered significant property damage,” the state prosecutor said.
“Active participant”
He recalled the position of the defendant, who pleaded not guilty and stated that his case was initiated because of a conflict with the head of the Kizlyar district of Dagestan, Alexander Pogorelov, whose criminal activities, according to Isaev, he opposed. The official accused of corruption did not live to see his trial, nor Isaev’s trial – he died in 2021. Isaev also claimed that witnesses were slandering him, and the investigation was conducted with numerous violations of the law. “He stated that the investigator demanded that he transfer a large amount of money, and after refusing to falsify evidence against him,” the prosecutor said. However, according to the public prosecutor, the arguments of the defendant were not confirmed.
He stated that his guilt was confirmed by the testimony of witnesses. It is interesting that one of them, Magomed Nurov (in February 2022 he received a life sentence, is included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring), retracted his testimony, saying in court that he gave it during the investigation under pressure. “However, during interrogation in court, the investigator and operatives denied the act of any illegal influence on Nurov,” said Roman Boldyrev. He also recalled that another witness, Pakhrudin Akhmedov, convicted of a terrorist attack near the building of the Kizlyar District Department of Internal Affairs, also testified against the defendant.
“Akhmedov has no grounds to slander Isaev, he received a life sentence, there are no grounds for commuting his sentence,” the state prosecutor said. He stressed that Isaev’s arguments that Akhmedov was taking revenge on him, since he personally detained both him and his brother, were also not confirmed.
Concluding his speech, Boldyrev drew the attention of the court to the fact that Isaev knew about the impending crime, “but, being a law enforcement officer, he did not report it and, moreover, actively participated in it.”
Requested term
According to the totality of the crimes committed – participation in a criminal community using one’s official position (part 3 of article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), banditry (part 3 of article 209 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as two episodes of a terrorist attack (part 3 of article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ) the prosecutor asked to sentence the ex-silovik to life in a special regime colony with the first five years in prison. He also proposed to deprive Gazi Isaev of the special rank of police colonel and impose a fine of 900 thousand rubles on him as an additional punishment.
In response, the defendant’s lawyer criticized the prosecution’s evidence, which, in his opinion, is contradictory.
Defendant’s Alibi
So, Eldar Khastinov pointed out that, according to the plot of the accusation, it was Isaev who, on the night of March 22, 2010, took the leader of the bandit underground, Magomedali Vagabov, to participate in the meeting, at which the decision was made to commit terrorist attacks in Moscow. At the same time, the earlier court verdict established that Magomed Nurov did it, the defense lawyer noted.
The arguments of the prosecutor’s office that Isaev transported Vagabov to Dagestan from March 25 to March 27, 2010, helped him bypass the traffic police post in the city of Kizilyurt, and also brought the suicide bomber Sharipova to the place of boarding the bus to Moscow on March 27, refutes the defendant’s alibi. He stated that in those days Isaev was in the hospital with inflammation of the lower leg and stayed there until March 28.
The lawyer noted that the Emarat Kavkaz was recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia only in 2010, so neither Isaev nor anyone else could realize the illegal nature of the activities of this organization “long before the court made the appropriate decision.”
Killed Witnesses
He also stressed that none of the witnesses interrogated in court spoke directly about Isaev’s participation in this organization and the colonel’s contacts with its leaders – they all heard something about it from someone’s words. At the same time, most of the “primary sources” are currently killed “by Isaev himself in the course of his fight against terrorists.”
Khastinov noted that in court the main witness for the prosecution, Magomed Nurov, admitted that during the investigation he slandered Isaev in exchange for a promise by the investigator and operatives that he would avoid a life sentence and go to a colony for 15 years.
The testimony of another key witness for the prosecution, a member of the Emarat Kavkaz, Pakhrudin Akhmedov, in his opinion, also does not stand up to scrutiny. After all, he heard that a high-ranking officer from the Kizlyar regional department named Gazi “leaked” information to the bandits about special operations against them from the words of another militant Rabadan Rabadanov. However, it is impossible to verify the words of the latter, since he was killed in 2012.
“Witness Akhmedov at the court session flatly refused to confirm his earlier testimony about Isaev’s involvement in the activities of the criminal community and the Caucasus Emirate gang. To any question directly or indirectly related to the personality of Isaev, the witness Akhmedov answered with silence, ”the lawyer said.
Testimony for the “stick of sausage”
Gazi Isaev himself stated in court that Akhmedov was ready to do anything for the sake of a “sausage stick”. Under the “stick of sausage”, the defendant, as the lawyer explained, meant the opportunity, at least for the time of testifying, to leave the colony “Vologda Pyatak” for life-sentenced prisoners and visit his native land, at his house in Dagestan (there his testimony was checked on the ground), to see his parents , spouse and children. “There is no real responsibility for giving false testimony for a life-sentenced prisoner,” Khastinov noted.
Continuing his thought about the slander of Isaev by the militants, the lawyer noted that, according to the testimony of a number of witnesses, “Isaev was sentenced to death by the Sharia court for his active work in combating crime in the region.” “He took a personal and direct part in 16 special operations, during which 77 militants were destroyed, and even introduced himself to the Order of Courage, but did not have time to receive it,” the lawyer said.
Isaev’s statement about extortion from him during the investigation of money, the defender commented as follows. As the lawyer told Business FM, his client did not hide this fact and even wrote a statement to the Investigative Committee, the FSB and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Price of freedom?
According to Khastinov, when Isaev was already arrested, on December 10, 2020, in the absence of a lawyer, an investigator came to him in the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center and “wrote the number 200” on a piece of paper. “My client believes that the investigator estimated his freedom at 200 million rubles. When the investigator in court was asked why he came, he presented the version that he had come to the arrested person to check my information about the failure to provide him with medical care in the isolation ward and the failure to provide medicines for diabetes. However, I wrote this statement on November 24, and the very next day, November 25, the investigator issued a decision in which he granted my request and sent information about the state of Isaev’s health to the pre-trial detention center administration. Therefore, he had no reason to come to the pre-trial detention center and visit him on this issue, ”the lawyer said in an interview with Business FM. He urged the court “not to follow the lead of the representatives of evil” and to acquit the defendant in connection with his non-involvement in the alleged crimes.
Isaev himself in the debate of the parties made a small remark, saying that he considers the accusation “from beginning to end false and fabricated.” “I ask me to be judged by my deeds, and not by someone’s false words and rumors,” he asked the three judges. They promised to hear the last word of the defendant on March 14, and two days later, on March 16, to announce the verdict.