The Second Court of Cassation only slightly changed the verdict in the high-profile case of the 2017 shootout in the OKO tower in Moscow City, in which one person died and five were injured. While leaving in force a 16-year term for the main defendant, Magomed Ismailov, the former head of the guard of the co-owner of the tower, Gavriil Yushvaev, who gave the order to start shooting, the court reduced the punishment for the guard Eldar Khamidov for two months, considering that he only kept the weapon, but did not acquire it. Representatives of the victims are satisfied with the court decision, and the defense plans to appeal it.
The Court of Cassation considered the complaints of the defendants’ lawyers for almost five hours. An additional intrigue to the meeting was given by a two-week pause, which the court took to study additional materials on the case. The lawyers of Magomed Ismailov and Eldar Khamidov, speaking during court hearings, insisted on the annulment of the verdict of the Presnensky Court of May 31, 2021 and the decision of the Moscow City Court of Appeal, which approved it in July 2022. According to the defense, the case should be sent back for a new trial.
In turn, representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the victims demanded that the previous court decisions be left in force, arguing that there were no legal grounds for satisfying lawyers’ complaints.
After listening to the views of the parties, the cassation court finally agreed with the arguments of the prosecution, reducing the 15-year term of the security guard Eldar Khamidov by only two months.
The court considered that in the course of the process, the state prosecution failed to prove that the person involved had acquired an unregistered pistol. The charge of possession of a weapon is upheld.
Magomed Ismailov’s sentence – 16 years in prison – remained unchanged.
Recall that in November 2017, the authoritative businessman Dmitry Pavlov celebrated his anniversary in the restaurant located in the OKO tower. About an hour after the start of the celebration, a conflict broke out at the entrance to the building. Employees of the private security company asked Maybach driver Gavriil Yushvaev, who was a guest of the anniversary, to drive the car away from the entrance to the building to the parking lot so as not to interfere with the arrival of other guests. However, this proposal provoked an aggressive reaction from the guards of Mr. Yushvaev, athletes from the Scorpio fight club, led by Magomed Ismailov. The conflict was tried to be extinguished by the employees of the Russian Guard, Dmitry Yakobson and Dmitry Ivanchev, who approached the car. However, soon, as the investigation and the court established, at the command of Ismailov, his henchmen took out weapons and opened fire. The shootout then continued in the tower itself, where the participants in the conflict rushed. As a result, Chopov member Platon Koyda was killed, five more people, including one employee of the private security company and both National Guardsmen, were injured.
The actions of Ismailov and his subordinate Khamidov were qualified as an attempted murder of two or more persons (Article 30 and part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), illegal arms trafficking (part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior agreement (part 2 of article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Lawyer Anton Gostev, representing the interests of the injured National Guard Dmitry Yakobson, was satisfied with the decision of the cassation instance, calling it lawful and justified. Protection of convicts plans to appeal it.
