The Second Western District Military Court sentenced to life imprisonment the former head of the Kizlyar Department of Internal Affairs, Colonel Gazi Isaev (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring) for his involvement in organizing the 2010 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.
According to a Business FM correspondent, Isaev was found guilty of 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 article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
According to the verdict of the court, the convict will serve his term in a special regime colony. “Deprive Isaev of the special rank of police colonel,” Konstantin Repeta, who presided over the trio of judges, announced the operative part of the verdict.
In addition, the court satisfied the claim of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Moscow Metro for compensation for damage caused by the destruction of train cars in the amount of 17 million 49 thousand rubles.
The claims of five victims for compensation for moral damages totaling over 600 million rubles were left without consideration by the court. Victims can apply with them through civil proceedings.
The defendant himself, who during the process behaved very emotionally, did not show any emotions at the announcement of the verdict. But the defendant’s lawyer Eldar Khastinov could not restrain them. “The triumph of justice did not happen. There is a strong feeling that we are again living through an era when the party said: it is necessary!, and the Komsomol answered: yes! ”, – he told Business FM at the end of the process.
In his opinion, Isaev’s innocence was proved in court, including with the help of an alibi that he had at the time of the alleged crimes. So, according to the lawyer, in March 2010 Isaev could not bring the leader of the underground Magomedali Vagabov (killed in 2010) to Dagestan and help him bypass the traffic police post in the city of Kizilyurt, and also on March 27 to bring the suicide bomber Sharipova to the place of boarding the bus in Moscow. The defense presented the court with medical documents stating that Isaev was in the surgical department of the Tarumovskaya Central District Hospital, where his leg was operated on, and stayed there until March 28.
“This (alibi) was confirmed by both the medical staff and the medical documents received by the defense and attached to the case file,” the lawyer said. “A lot of witnesses spoke out in court for the veracity of his words, from ordinary policemen to generals, and why the court believed some renegades there, I don’t understand.”
The defense lawyer did not answer the question whether he would appeal against the verdict, however, it is clear that a complaint will be filed with the Military Court of Appeal.
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 the Park Kultury. Then more than a hundred people were injured, 39 were killed, as well as both suicide bombers – Maryam Sharipova and Jennet Abdulaeva.
According to the prosecution, 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). The defendant disclosed to the bandits official information about the protection of public order, as well as about the counter-terrorist operation against the militants, thanks to which they managed to hide. The latter set as their goal the creation of a Sharia state on the territory of the North Caucasus region.
The investigation established that Isaev personally drove the bandits through the territory of Dagestan more than once. It is believed that it was he who drove one of the suicide bombers, Maryam Sharipova, with a “shahid belt” from an unidentified household in the Kizlyar district of Dagestan to a bus station in the Kizlyar region, so that from there she went to Moscow to carry out terrorist attacks.
During the trial, which began on December 19, 2022, Isaev pleaded not guilty. In court, the defendant voiced the version that he ended up in the dock thanks to the former head of the Kizlyar district, Alexander Pogorelov (he died in 2021). According to Isaev’s defense, in this way he took revenge on the security official for the checks, which resulted in several criminal cases at once.
During the debate of the parties, the prosecution requested for him the most severe punishment in existence – life imprisonment. At the same time, the defendant’s lawyer Eldar Khastinov asked Isaev to be acquitted. According to the defense, the accusation against the colonel was based only on the testimony of former Dagestan militants who had previously been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or destroyed. The former referred to the words of the latter, which could not be cross-checked.
According to the defense, in fact, only two people gave evidence against Gazi Isaev: Pakhrudin Akhmedov and Magomed Nurov, sentenced to life imprisonment. Both are included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring. The first allegedly knew about Isaev’s help to the terrorists from the words of the now killed militant Rabadan Rabadanov. The second, in court, retracted his words, saying that he had slandered the defendant, since he was promised a term of 15 years for this. Isaev himself in court called his case custom-made, arguing that the investigator allegedly offered him to pay 200 million rubles for closing the case.
In his last speech, he said that he had been fighting terrorism and manifestations of extremism on the territory of the Republic of Dagestan for decades, and reproached the prosecution for wanting to convict him on the testimony of militants whom he had persecuted all his life.