Translated material
"Russian Basayev"
A suspect in organizing terrorist attacks in Russian cities has been announced
Exactly a year after the Nevsky Express bombing, the investigation identified the main organizer and perpetrator of this terrorist attack. Yesterday a suspect was named - Pavel Kosolapov. This name was mentioned four years ago in connection with the investigation of the most terrible terrorist attacks of recent times - explosions in the Moscow metro, explosions in the Moscow region, Voronezh, Krasnodar and Samara. In February last year, the Moscow City Court handed down a life sentence to Maxim Panaryin, who was considered the main culprit of these terrorist attacks. But now, as investigators say, it turns out that Panaryin was just a pawn in the game of Kosolapov, who is considered the “brain” of terrorism, “a terrible person, capable of anything, whom even his accomplices are so afraid of that they do not betray him.”Kosolapov is an almost mythical figure, a kind of “Russian Basayev”. The operatives have never seen his face and have only an identikit, but they have no doubt about the real existence of this genius of crime - they have irrefutable evidence. Therefore, yesterday he was charged in absentia with blowing up the Nevsky Express and put on the international wanted list. True, investigators suspect that Kosolapov should be looked for not abroad, but here in Russia - in the North Caucasus, where he is “being tracked and, perhaps, developing a plan for the next terrorist attack.”
High-speed train No. 166 "Nevsky Express", traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, was blown up on the evening of August 13 last year on the Okulovka - Malaya Vishera section of the Oktyabrskaya Railway. At that time there were 231 passengers and 20 members of the train crew. As an examination later established, a homemade mine with a capacity of about 2 kg of TNT was planted on the railway tracks, 30 meters before the bridge across the river. However, the high speed at which the express traveled helped avoid casualties. The train, having already left the rails, simply flew over the river by inertia, and only then did some of the cars overturn. 62 people were injured.
Three days after the explosion, the investigation announced the detention of the first suspects - two residents of St. Petersburg, Kalenov and Zelenyuk, as well as a “local” Chechen Didigov. According to investigators, Kalenov, who is interested in the history of the war and excavations at battle sites, allegedly could have obtained explosives from the Great Patriotic War and handed them over to Didigov, who, in turn, made a bomb to blow up a train. But then all three were released because, as it turned out, the detainees had irrefutable alibis. New suspects emerged only in October. The Khidriev brothers - Maksharip and Amirkhan - were detained in their native Ingush village of Ekazhevo. And in December, their fellow countryman Salanbek Dzakhkiev was detained. In April of this year, Salanbek Dzakhkiev and Amirkhan Khidriev were released on bail. As it turned out, the investigator did not even apply for an extension of their detention. And although the change in their procedural status was not officially announced, the lawyers said that the investigation had no complaints against their clients. Now only Maksharip Khidriev remains under arrest.
Now the semi-mythical Kosolapov has been declared the main organizer of the Nevsky Express explosion. According to our source in the UPC, it was he who hired three Ingush to carry out his plan. According to investigators, only Amirkhan Khidriev was not informed about the impending crime, so he is listed as a witness in the case. And his younger brother and Salanbek Dzakhkiev allegedly took a direct part in preparing the terrorist attack.
According to our source, the investigation was able to get on the trail of the elusive Kosolapov thanks to experts. They discovered that the Casio watches embedded in the explosives placed on the rails were absolutely identical to those that were found back in March 2004 during a search of an apartment in Lyubertsy, near Moscow, which was used as a base by the terrorists who seized Nord-Ost. FSB officers seized there 21 rounds for an RPG-7 hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, 19 electric detonators, 18 Casio watches prepared for use as a time delay in an explosive device, two F-1 grenades and one RPG-5 grenade. It was precisely these components that were used to make explosive devices that were used to blow up gas pipelines and a power line in the Moscow region in the same 2004. As the investigation later established, Kosolapov rented an apartment for terrorists. “It was he who was their direct inspirer and organizer of the terrorist attacks,” says a source in the UPC.
According to him, Kosolapov is directly related to the organization of terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro on February 6, 2004, between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations (then 42 people died and 250 were injured) and at the Rizhskaya metro station on the evening of August 31 of the same year (49 people died, more than 300 were injured). In addition, according to the source, he is suspected of organizing a series of terrorist attacks at public transport stops in Krasnodar and Voronezh. In Krasnodar on the morning of August 25, 2003, explosions occurred almost simultaneously at three bus stops - bombs were placed on the roofs of bus stops and equipped with timers (four people were killed and 17 were injured). There were four similar explosions in Voronezh - on February 19, July 19 and July 26, 2004 and January 26, 2005 (one person was killed, three were injured). Kosolapov is also credited with carrying out an explosion at a market in Samara in June of the same year (11 people were killed, 71 were injured).
When the first suspect in these atrocities, Maxim Panaryin, was detained in May 2005, the investigation believed that this was the elusive Pavel Kosolapov. The external resemblance was striking - both were fair-haired, approximately the same height and age. And their biographies are similar. According to the investigation, both Panaryin and Kosolapov ended up in Chechnya in 1999-2000, converted to Islam there and were trained in the militant camp of the Arab mercenary Khattab “Caucasus”. The investigation believes that they had their first “baptism of fire” in Krasnodar in August 2003. Then explosions followed one after another in different Russian cities. It is believed that Panaryin and Kosolapov acted on the instructions of Shamil Basayev. Even a small difference in age - about three years (Panaryin is now 32 years old, and Kosolapov is 29) - does not mean anything, the detectives argued, since they always used fake passports. According to the collected data, Panaryin was born in Budapest, in the family of a military officer, lived in the Stavropol Territory and studied at the Rostov Military School. And Kosolapov, although according to documents he was born in the Volgograd region, he studied at the same military school, a hereditary Cossack and, like Panaryin, a converted Muslim.
But, as investigators have now established, Kosolapov and Panaryin are still two different people. When Panaryin was caught in 2005, investigators during interrogations were unable to obtain information from him about his “commander,” as well as from other accomplices in the terrorist attacks. “The only thing Panaryin said: if he gives up Kosolapov, he will get him out of the ground,” said our source in the SKP. According to him, the investigation knows the whereabouts of Kosolapov. “It will be extremely difficult to get it. But if he succeeds, he will be charged not only for the Nevsky Express, but also for terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro, the Moscow region, Krasnodar, Voronezh and Samara,” the UPC said.