As it became known to Kommersant, the Moscow Regional Court released from custody accused of organizing a contract killing of businessman Alexander Kibalchenko. According to investigators, the man, a former professor at the Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman, and now a stock exchange trader living in England, organized the massacre of his former son-in-law Timur Zainiev. According to the Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR), the cause was a family conflict – Mr. Zainiev prevented a former relative from taking his children to the UK.
The court made its decision at the eighth preliminary hearing in the criminal case on the kidnapping and murder of programmer Timur Zainiev. The main reason for the delay was the filing by the parties of numerous petitions, the key of which was the request of lawyers for the release of 66-year-old Alexander Kibalchenko, accused of organizing a contract killing (part 3 of article 33, part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The defense referred to the conclusion of the doctors, who recorded complications in him after a stroke in the pre-trial detention center. The diagnosis is on the government-approved list of diseases that prevent detention. However, the lawyers of the injured party opposed the release, seeing a number of contradictions in the documents.
The judge decided to send Alexander Kibalchenko under house arrest, extending the term of detention in the SIZO for the rest of the defendants.
Timur Zainiev, 44, was killed on March 4, 2021. On that day, he arrived at the Khoroshevsky District Court, where the issues of visiting his young children, who, after the divorce, lived with his ex-wife Victoria, were being considered. The meeting was adjourned, but the man never returned home.
The police, thanks to the recordings of CCTV cameras, established that on Marshal Tukhachevsky Street, not far from the court, four people attacked Timur Zainiev. They knocked him down, immobilized him with a stun gun and took him away in a car. Literally in a day, detectives identified and detained all the participants in the abduction – former policeman Roman Osipov and his acquaintances – Vladimir Filimonchuk, Maxim Enbekov and Vladislav Melnikov.
Roman Osipov admitted that he kidnapped and killed Timur Zainiev on the order of his father-in-law Alexander Kibalchenko, showing the police a garage in Krasnogorsk, where the victim was strangled with a belt.
According to the performer, he brought the customer to the garage so that he would be convinced of the death of Mr. Zainiev. Alyaksandr Kibalchenko was detained at the Belorussky railway station, from where he was going to leave for Minsk.
The conflict between Timur Zainiev and Alexander Kibalchenko developed over several years. Kibalchenko did not consider his son-in-law equal to his daughter.
Mr. Zainiev, after defending his dissertation in theoretical physics at Cambridge, first worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland in England, and then moved to Moscow, where he took up a post at Troika Dialog.
Alexander Kibalchenko himself once worked in the famous Baumanka and participated with other scientists in a number of major projects, including the creation of the Buran spacecraft. True, then he abruptly changed his field of activity, becoming a broker in the stock market in the UK. He settled there and bought a house. At the same time, he had British and Russian passports.
In Russia, Kibalchenko has been visiting, for the most part helping his daughter with a divorce that began in 2018, and subsequent litigation. Alexander Kibalchenko tried to take his grandchildren to England, but the former son-in-law obtained a court ban on this. Former relatives sued, along the way filing a friend against a friend statements to the police.
“There were unconfirmed accusations of fraud, attacks, distribution of pornography, trials for a house in Pestovo on the banks of the reservoir, a computer chair, and even a book with fairy tales,” Anton Zharov, the lawyer for the victims, said, noting that Kibalchenko’s father and daughter lost most of it.
Against this background, according to the investigation, Alexander Kibalchenko ordered his former son-in-law for $50,000 to a casual acquaintance, Roman Osipov, who introduced himself as an FSB colonel in charge of Rosatom. In fact, in the past, he was a simple driver in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, fired for violating traffic rules. According to the ICR, Roman Osipov attracted three acquaintances for spying and kidnapping Timur Zainiev for only 10 thousand rubles.
Alexander Kibalchenko himself, despite the fact that he spoke negatively about his son-in-law in conversations with investigators, denies all the accusations against him, claiming that he gave money to Roman Osipov as a loan for investments.
