No witnesses

No one has ever seen the killers of Andrei Kozlov

Andrei Kozlov, seriously wounded on Wednesday evening, died early yesterday morning in the 33rd City Clinical Hospital of Moscow. As soon as he was taken to the intensive care unit around 10 pm on Wednesday, doctors began performing an operation that lasted several hours. However, doctors were unable to save Mr. Kozlov; he died at about 5.30 am. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. In total, the criminals fired two bullets at the official. The second wound, in the chest, although also severe, was less life-threatening, according to doctors.

At yesterday's government meeting, which began with a minute of silence in memory of Andrei Kozlov, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov demanded that the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, “report all versions of the assassination as they emerge.” In turn, the minister reported that he had taken this crime under personal control. A little later, the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Yuri Chaika, announced that he had taken this investigation under his special control.

All day yesterday, the death of the deputy chairman of the Central Bank and its possible consequences were discussed by politicians and entrepreneurs. By evening, the Association of Russian Banks (ARB) announced the creation of a special fund to pay for information about those who ordered and carried out the murder of Mr. Kozlov. “A “hotline” will be created through which anyone who has information or has the appropriate capabilities can report this information, this will be processed by law enforcement agencies and by us, accordingly, it will also be analyzed. There will be a special reward for those who will ultimately solve this crime. We will help law enforcement agencies in the investigation, because at the expert level we can suggest a lot, shed light on a lot,” said the head of the ARB Garegin Tosunyan. He also confidently stated that the reason for the attempt on the official’s life was his professional activity: “here there cannot be even a shadow of a doubt.”

Meanwhile, as far as is known, yesterday employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the Moscow prosecutor’s office were unable to find out anything fundamentally new about the circumstances and possible motives for the assassination attempt on Mr. Kozlov. Moreover, the investigation was not even able to properly reconstruct the picture of the attack itself and even approximate signs of the killers. As it turned out, no one really saw them.

As is known, the attack on Mr. Kozlov took place near the Spartak Sports Palace on Oleniy Val Street, where Andrei Kozlov came every Wednesday to play football with his colleagues. At about 9:20 p.m., he was the first of all the participants in the game to leave the sports complex and went to the Mercedes official car, which was parked 30 meters from the entrance. He was accompanied only by the driver of the Central Bank motor depot, 54-year-old Alexander Semenov. The attack took place almost at the car, but no one saw this moment. Apparently, the criminal fired only 4 shots - two at the driver, who was killed outright, and two at Mr. Kozlov. Judging by the traces of blood, the official then tried to run back towards the sports complex, but after taking a few steps, he fell. Almost immediately after this, he was discovered by his playmates, who followed him out into the street. No one saw the killers - some allegedly only noticed running figures moving away in the dark towards the nearby Sokolniki Park. When inspecting the scene of the emergency, a homemade silencer for a pistol was found, which, apparently, was used by the killers, and which for some reason was torn off the barrel during the shooting. Detectives also found out that some people passing by a little earlier saw two men near the sports complex who seemed to be waiting for someone and smoking. However, no one paid much attention to them, in addition, it is not clear whether these were the killers. The investigation of the crime scene continued until yesterday, and already in the morning, 300 meters from the scene of the emergency, two pistols abandoned in the bushes were found. One, according to preliminary data, is a gas-powered “Baikal” (an analogue of a combat PM), the second is a homemade one converted to fire live ammunition. However, this is the only result of the search so far. Based on this, the detectives only assumed that the killers ran through part of the park to the Yauza embankment, where a car was most likely waiting for them.

Officially, no one at the prosecutor's office commented on the progress of the investigation yesterday. Investigators, as far as we know, hypothetically put forward more than a dozen versions, including murder based on personal hostility or as a result of a domestic conflict. But most of it, naturally, was related to the professional activities of Mr. Kozlov, who oversaw banking supervision at the Central Bank. “There is an opinion that the customer could have been one of Kozlov’s “potential clients”, in respect of whom the Central Bank was only conducting an audit and was even planning to conduct one, or someone from his entourage who was trying to “agree” with dishonest bankers, and Kozlov could find out about this,” said one of the operatives. However, so far all these versions remained just guesses. Investigators, obviously, will be able to make a more substantive judgment on this matter only after analyzing all of Mr. Kozlov’s current official files, and his work and personal documents. Yesterday, as far as we know, an inspection was already carried out in the official’s office. However, even having found a specific motive for the assassination attempt, it will not be easy for the investigation to prove the guilt of the suspects, since there is no direct evidence against the perpetrators of the murder. However, it is possible that the operatives still managed to find some traces of the criminals, and they are not disclosing them yet, so as not to scare off the criminals. As was the case, for example, in the case of the murder of State Duma deputy Sergei Yushenkov. Then they managed to get on the trail of the criminals using one fingerprint accidentally left by one of the killers.

Alexey IVLEV, Alexey GRISHIN