Notary for a killer

In the investigation of the sensational murder of Paul Klebnikov, editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, who was shot last July in Moscow, another person involved has appeared. As it turned out at the end of last week, the Prosecutor General’s Office arrested the capital’s notary Fail Sadretdinov on suspicion of involvement in this crime. Earlier, Chechens Kazbek Dukuzov and Musa Vakhaev, who, according to the special services, were the direct perpetrators of the assassination attempt, were detained in this case. What role Mr. Sadretdinov played in this matter remains unclear. The Prosecutor General's Office did not disclose any details in this regard, citing the secrecy of the investigation. The notary's lawyer claims that his client had nothing to do with the murder of the journalist. Nevertheless, last week Mr. Sadretdinov was charged under Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (murder), and the Basmanny Court of Moscow issued a warrant for his arrest.

As it turned out, Fail Sadretdinov was detained on May 24. On that day, he was summoned to the Prosecutor General's Office for questioning as a witness using the usual summons, and upon arrival he was immediately detained. As the Vremya Novostei correspondent managed to find out, Mr. Sadretdinov had previously been summoned to the Prosecutor General’s Office more than once to testify in the “Khlebnikov case.”

Lawyer Ruslan Koblev, who now represents the interests of Fail Sadretdinov, also could not explain the situation yesterday. In a conversation with our correspondent, he only stated that his client “was in no way connected with the detained Chechens Vakhaev and Dukuzov, and was not familiar with Paul Khlebnikov himself.”

His colleagues also wondered what could have been the reason for the notary’s arrest. They only said that Mr. Sadretdinov specialized mainly in inheritance matters and had never been involved in any dark stories before. According to unofficial data from the special services, the reason for his arrest was allegedly some information that the notary was still connected with the perpetrators of the murder.

Paul Khlebnikov was shot on the evening of July 9, 2004, while leaving the editorial building on Dokukina Street near the Botanical Garden metro station. The next day, on Mira Avenue, police found a car from which the criminals fired. The Department for Particularly Important Cases of the Prosecutor General's Office took over the investigation of the criminal case. In September last year, the first loud statement appeared from the leadership of the Moscow Central Internal Affairs Directorate that they had detained two residents of Chechnya (on suspicion of possessing weapons and kidnapping a banker), from whom three pistols had been confiscated. The journalist was allegedly killed with one of these pistols. However, they were not charged with the murder of the Forbes editor. Later, the Prosecutor General's Office put forward a new version that the shots at the editor-in-chief of the Russian Forbes were fired by another resident of Chechnya, Muslim Ibragimov (aka Kazbek Dukuzov), and his accomplice was Musa Vakhaev, who either prepared the car for the killer or drove it after crimes. In the Zhiguli car, Musa’s fingerprint was found on the driver’s door window. And inside the car, on the driver’s seat, a hair was found, which, according to the examination, belongs to Dukuzov. By the way, his hair, as reported by the Prosecutor General's Office, was also found in a motorcycle helmet, which was allegedly worn by the killer of Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen government Yan Sergunin, who was also shot in Moscow last summer. Vakhaev was arrested in November 2004, at the same time Muslim Ibragimov was detained in Minsk. In February this year, Belarusian authorities extradited Ibragimov, and he was also charged with the murder of Paul Klebnikov.

Tatiana GRITSENKO