Source Gazi Isaev, the former head of the police department of the Kizlyar district of Dagestan, appeared before the court. He stated that his case was initiated by the head of the district, whom he wanted to “imprison”. The Second Western District Military Court began considering 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). The 57-year-old defendant is accused of being an accomplice of the terrorists who in 2010 staged explosions at the Moscow metro stations Lubyanka and Park Kultury. They claimed the lives of 41 people (including two suicide bombers), and more than a hundred were injured.
In court, Isaev, who faces a long term, up to life imprisonment, did not plead guilty and said that the case was ordered. The defendant laid the responsibility for initiating this case on the former head of the Kizlyarsky district, Alexander Pogorelov, who died in 2021.
During the trial, the defendant was in a fighting mood. Having cursed at the journalists when he was being led by an escort, he calmed down a bit when he saw his two sons in the hall. Both have higher legal education, they petitioned for admission to the case as defenders together with lawyer Eldar Khastinov. However, the three judges listened to the opinion of the prosecutor Roman Boldyrev. He pointed out that the law allows only one of the close relatives of the defendant to be a public defender. As a result, it was decided that Aziz Isaev would remain in the case.
Bringing a suicide bomber?Announcing the plot of the accusation, the prosecutor said that in 2009-2010, Gazi Isaev, being an official (at that time he was the deputy head of the criminal police department of the Kizlyar district of Dagestan), shared the ideology of radical Islam and joined the criminal community. We are talking about the Emarat Kavkaz organization, recognized as terrorist and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation, or rather, its structural unit Novokostek Jamaat (the organization’s activities are banned in the Russian Federation), which was headed by Magomedali Vagabov (destroyed in August 2010). According to the prosecutor, Isaev disclosed to the bandits official information about the protection of public order, as well as 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.
“Isaev’s duties included the transportation of gang members and weapons, ensuring the participation of the gang leader Vagabov in meetings on the territory of Dagestan – in the so-called shura”, the prosecutor said.
According to the plot of the accusation, Isaev personally drove other bandits through the territory of Dagestan more than once. And on March 20, 2009, he brought Vagabov in his VAZ-2114 car to a meeting of the gang underground in the Buynaksky district of Dagestan, where it was decided to carry out terrorist attacks in the capital. When the car was stopped at the traffic police post in Kizlyar, Isaev showed his official ID and the car was let through without inspection.
At the end of March 2009, Isaev, according to the prosecution, brought one of the suicide bombers, Maryam Sharipova (wife of Magomedali Vagabov), 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 – the investigation did not establish. The explosions took place early in the morning on March 29, 2010. First, at 7:56 a.m., the bomb went off at the Lubyanka metro station, and at 8:39 a.m., at Park Kultury. br />Gazi Isaev is charged with organizing a criminal community using his 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). He pleads not guilty.
During the investigation, Isaev's lawyer told Business FM that the case against his client was initiated by convicted militants who wanted to take revenge on him (in particular, Pakhrudin Akhmedov testified against Isaev many years later, sentenced to life in prison for the terrorist attack near the building of the Kizlyar District Department of Internal Affairs). In court, the defendant presented a new version.
“This accusation is false from beginning to end, the criminal case against me is ordered. I am here because I wanted to imprison the head of the district administration, I wanted to imprison the main thief,” Isaev said. He lamented that he was now brought to trial “as the main villain” and his family was receiving threats.
Later, the defendant's lawyer Eldar Khastinov, commenting on the defendant's words to Business FM, stated that it was Isaev who had initiated the checks against the head of the Kizlyar district, Alexander Pogorelov. Several criminal cases were initiated against the latter for taking bribes, as well as under articles on abuse of office and on official forgery. However, the 54-year-old Pogorelov did not live to see the verdict. He passed away in September 2021.
“Isaev was checking information [regarding Pogorelov],” the defender said. “People came up to [Isaev] and said, ‘Don’t touch him. He will tell you everything in more detail.” The lawyer noted that Pogorelov was a witness for the prosecution during the investigation, talking about the colonel's “circle of contacts” and stating that he was allegedly close to the terrorists. Despite the death of Pogorelov, his testimony remains in the case and will be read out during the process. However, according to Khastinov, they cannot be trusted, since Pogorelov once demonstrated a diametrically opposite attitude towards Isaev, signing documents for awarding him the Order of Courage.
The defender added that Pogorelov's son, according to his information, “works in the same department – the FSB, which initiated the landing” of his client. This, according to the lawyer, indirectly confirms the defendant's version of bringing him to justice out of revenge.
Like in a horror movie
At the first session, on December 19, the court heard the testimony of four victims: former police officer on the Moscow metro Sergey Kolymagin, ex-police officer Alexander Stepanov, metro worker Vera Chivinova and former doctor Marina Ivankina. All of them received certain injuries as a result of explosions at the Lubyanka or at the Park of Culture. The victims said that on March 29, 2010, they seemed to be in an American horror movie. At the same time, Ivankina remembered that before the explosion she saw not one, but two women of oriental appearance, who stood in the center of the car. “I felt something on the Lubyanka, went to the door, the door opened and I was thrown out,” recalled a woman who received burns to her face and head, and also earned hearing loss after a mine-explosive injury.
And Alexander Stepanov said that he mistook the suicide bomber for a woman in position, there was a place next to her, but he decided to sit where it was more spacious, and this saved him. According to the victim, the terrorist attracted his attention by the fact that she was brightly dressed. “Bright top and bottom – the person seemed to have gathered for a holiday, and the weather was bad, perhaps it was a ritual. She went to the middle of the car and began to say something, said just a couple of phrases – and there was an explosion. Then I had to crawl out of the car,” said Stepanov, who then received a serious bodily injury. He and Marina Ivankina said that they would not file claims for damages in the case, since at one time the authorities of the capital paid them compensation. And Vera Chivinova and Sergey Kolymagin promised to think it over.
In total, out of more than a hundred victims, claims for compensation for moral damage and material damage totaling 24.5 million rubles were filed during the investigation by only five, said the chairman of the to the trio of judges Konstantin Repeta.
The trial will continue on December 20 with an examination of the written materials of the case. According to the forecast of the participants in the process, the trial will take at least three months, and the verdict will be delivered as early as 2023. Earlier, on February 4, 2022, the court sentenced one of the accomplices of the terrorists, a resident of Dagestan, Magomed Nurov (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring). He was sentenced to the most severe punishment – life imprisonment.
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