Crimes without punishment

The most loud custom murders of the last two decades

Over the past 20 years, the country has been accustomed to crimes causing a wide public outcry. She was also used to the fact that law enforcement agencies are not able to reveal them. The most loud custom -made killings and the results of their investigation were remembered by The New Times

Dmitry Kholodov,
Military observer of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, 27 years old

The journalist died on October 17, 1994 in the editorial office of MK after the explosion of the Lovushka mine. The explosive device was in the portfolio, which Kholodov brought from the station storage room and tried to open. Before that, an unknown person called him and said that there were some sensational documents in the diplomat. On suspicion of involvement in the murder, six suspects were detained: retired colonel Pavel Popovsky, commander of the special forces detachment, Major Vladimir Morozov, former paratrooper Konstantin Barkovsky, an officer of the Airborne Forces Alexander Soroka, a former commander of the special forces detachment Konstantin Mirzoants and the deputy leader of the Ross private security company Alexander Kapuntsov. The prosecution claimed that after the appearance of publications on corruption in the Ministry of Defense in 1993, Minister Pavel Grachev set the task of stopping the publication in front of Colonel Pavel Popovsky and establish their source. Since August 1994, by order of Popovsky, Vladimir Morozov followed the journalist, they soon decided to liquidate Kholodov. The trial began on November 9, 2000. On June 26, 2002, the Moscow District Military Court justified the defendants. After the verdict was canceled by the military collegium of the Supreme Court, on June 10, 2004, all six of the defendants were again justified. On March 14, 2005, the Military Collegium of the Armed Forces confirmed the legality of the acquittal, and he entered into force. Twice justified suspects of the murder of Dmitry Kholodov received monetary compensation. The statute of limitations in the case expired in 2004.

Vladislav Listyev,
General Director of ORT, 38 years old

On March 1, 1995, Listyev was shot dead in the entrance of his house at Novokuznetskaya Street, house 30, building 2. The most promising investigators considered the version related to the activities of Vladislav Listyev as the director of the ORT: he tried to make the channel's transparent activities.
On April 21, 2009, the investigation was suspended due to the inability to establish those responsible for the murder. The statute of limitations in the case expires in 2010.

Mikhail Manevich,
Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, head of the privatization committee, 36 years old

On August 18, 1997, in St. Petersburg, his service car "Volvo" was fired. Vice-mayor died on the way to the hospital. The killer shot from the Kalashnikov assault rifle from the attic of the house. The investigation was associated with an attempt with the professional activities of the deceased. Neither the performer nor the customer of the murder has yet been found. But more recently, information appeared that a certain Alexei Gardotsky, who was under investigation and arrest in connection with the case of one St. Petersburg gang, said that it was he was the performer of the murder of Manevich. No evidence of this version was received from the investigating authorities.

Larisa Yudin,
editor of the newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykia Today, 52 years old

On June 7, 1998, she went to a meeting, at which she was supposed to receive documents on the shadow activities of the Development and Cooperation Agency under the President of the Republic. She did not return from the meeting. Two days later, the body of a journalist with multiple stab wounds was discovered at the pond on the outskirts of Elista. Soon the suspects were arrested: assistant to the President of Kalmykia Sergey Vaskin, his previously convicted acquaintance Vladimir Shanukov and representative of the President of Kalmykia in the Volgograd region of the Turby Boskhomjiev. Sergei Vaskin found a knife with traces of blood of Larisa Yudina. At the end of 1999, the Supreme Court of Kalmykia sentenced Sergei Vaskin and Vladimir Shanukov by 21 imprisonment in a special regime colony. Sergei Lipin, the owner of the apartment where Larisa Yudin was killed, to six years in prison. Boskhomjiev was exempted from liability for the help of the investigation. Crime customers were not found.

Galina Starovoitova,
State Duma deputy, leader of the Democratic Russia party, 52 years old

She was shot dead on November 20, 1998 in St. Petersburg at the entrance of his house on the Griboedov channel. In 2005, by 20 years of imprisonment, the technical organizer of the crime Yuri Kolchin, the direct executor Vitaly Akinshin, for 23.5 years, were convicted. A year later, two more defendants in the case were sentenced: Vyacheslav Lelyavin, Pavel Stekhnovsky, received 2 years in prison for aiding in the acquisition of weapons, for aiding in the murder of 11 years of strict regime. In September 2009, the investigation was resumed due to newly discovered circumstances. The former State Duma deputy Mikhail Glushchenko was interrogated as a witness in the case. His surname was repeatedly mentioned by the accused and witnesses, claiming that he was on friendly relations with Kolchin and provided the premises where preparations for the crime were underway.

Yuri Shchekochikhin,
State Duma deputy in 1995-2003, editor of the investigation department of Novaya Gazeta, 53 years old

Shchekochikhin was hospitalized in the Central Clinical Hospital and suddenly died on July 3, 2003. The official cause of death is intoxication caused by Lyell syndrome (a severe version of allergic bullet dermatitis, affects the internal organs, immune system, and skin). However, later traces of phenol and lidocaine were found in his body. In recent months, before the poisoning, the journalist has been investigating a high -profile case about the smuggling of furniture with the participation of high -ranking FSB officers, better known as the “three whales” and corruption in the General Prosecutor's Office. Nevertheless, the Kuntsevskaya prosecutor's office of Moscow refused to institute criminal proceedings on the death of the journalist.
In October 2007, after the former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London, at the insistence of the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta, the Investigative Committee under the prosecutor's office nevertheless began the investigation. In early April 2008, the representative of the Investigative Committee at the prosecutor's office said that "it is planned to conduct a whole range of investigative-operational measures, including a number of complex comprehensive examinations with the involvement of foreign specialists from expert institutions." On April 4, a criminal case was finally instituted under the article “Murder”. In September of the same year, the body of the journalist was exhumed. However, in April 2009, the UKP terminated the criminal case, stating that the disease that caused the death of Yuri Shchekochikhin cannot be caused by artificially.

Paul Khlebnikov,
The editor -in -chief of the Russian version of Forbes magazine, 41 years old

Deadly wounded by four shots in the evening of July 9, 2004 in Moscow on Dokukina Street at the exit of the editorial office. In 2005, the Prosecutor General’s Office named the name of the murder customer-Kozh-Ahmed Nukhaev, a former Chechen field commander, who was the main character of Paul Khlebnikov’s book “Conversation with Barbar”. The accusation of the murder was brought by residents of Chechnya Kazbek Dukuzov and Muse Vakhaev. Also in the case was the Moscow notary Fail Sadretdinov. In May 2006, all three were justified by the jury. After the abolition of the acquittal by the Supreme Court, Khozh-Ahmed Nukhaev, Kazbek and Magomed Dukuzovs were put on the international wanted list, and the Vakhaev subscription was taken from Musa Vakhaev. According to the Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor's Office, the term of investigation of the case of Khlebnikov’s murder is extended.

Andrey Kozlov,
Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, 41 years old

The banker’s car was fired on September 14, 2006 on the Onniya Val Street in Moscow. The driver died on the spot, Kozlov died the next morning. Kozlov’s colleagues said the crime is associated with the professional activities of the deceased. A month later, three citizens of Ukraine were detained, who were called direct performers of crime. In December 2006, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika announced the disclosure of the murder. In January 2007, the former chairman of the Board of VIP Bank Alexei Frenkel was detained, whom the investigation called the customer of the murder. In November 2008, Frenkel was sentenced to 19 years in prison. At the same time, there is a version that Frenkel had nothing to do with it, and Kozlov was killed for trying to stop the withdrawal and laundering of large sums with high Russian officials through Discontan banks and the Austrian Raiffeisen. A series of investigations of this fraud was published in The New Times in 2007-2008.

Anna Politkovskaya,
Observer of Novaya Gazeta, 48 years old
Anna Politkovskaya was shot in the elevator of her house in the center of Moscow on October 7, 2006. In connection with this case, a former employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, Ibrahim and Dzhabrail Makhmudovs, who were accused of promoting the crime, were sent to the bench. The investigation believes that the directly performer was the brother of the accused - Rustam Makhmudov. But it still has not been possible to find it. The customer of the crime is not established.
On August 27, 2007, the prosecutor's office charged with complicity of the murder of the UFSB employee to Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov, and on September 21, the former head of the Achokhoy-Martan district of the Chechen Republic Shamil Buraev. In February 2009, all defendants were justified by the jury and released. On June 25, the acquittal was canceled by the Supreme Court, and the case was sent for a new consideration. In early November, on the eve of a visit to Germany, Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the magazine “Spiegel” that the Politkovskaya case was “completely investigated”.

Alexander Litvinenko,
Former FSB Colonel, 44 years old

He died on November 23, 2006 in London as a result of Polo-210 poisoning. According to Scotland Yard, the murder of Litvinenko is guilty of an entrepreneur, a former officer of the Main Department of Security, and now the State Duma deputy from the LDPR Andrei Lugovoi. Also, accusations against a friend and colleagues of Lugovoi, Dmitry Kovtun were made: on November 11, a message came that the Hamburg court seemed to have removed the charges from Kovtun, but there was no evidence from the German side yet.
The UK demanded the extraction of meadow. The Russian side refused, referring to the weakness of the evidence base, bias and political engagement of the investigation. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia is ready to judge the meadow house if the royal prosecutor’s office presented sufficient grounds for that.

Political killings in the North Caucasus

Magomed Evloev,
Creator of the website Ingushetia.ru, Ingush opposition, 37 years old

On August 31, 2008, the police detained Magomed Evloev at the Magas Naransky airport. He flew to Ingushetia from Moscow on the same plane with the then president of the republic Murat Zyazikov. The opposition was pushed into one of the cars of the motorcade of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Musa Medov. No one saw him alive. In the car of the car, he was shot dead by the security guard of the minister Ibrahim Evloev.
At 15.55, Magomed Evloev died in a republican hospital from a gunshot wound to the head. According to some data, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs delivered him there, according to others, the opposition was found on the threshold of the hospital. A criminal case was opened under the article “Murder by negligence”. On October 5, representatives of the UKP admitted: "Mr. Evloev was mortally wounded as a result of an involuntary shot from a pistol of one of the escorts." The investigation was completed.

Ruslan (Khalid) Yamadaev,
State Duma deputy in 2003-2007, 46 years old

On September 24, 2008, in Moscow, on the Mercedes Smolensk Embankment, Yamadaev was fired by a killer, which came out of the BMW traffic light stopped nearby. Yamadaev died on the spot. The former military commandant of Chechnya, who accompanied Yamadaev, was retired colonel General Sergei Kizyun was seriously injured.
On April 7, the Basmanny Court of Moscow issued a sanction for the arrest of three residents of the Chechen Republic-Aslanbek Dadaev, Timur Isaev and Elim Pashi Khatsuev. He shot, as the investigation believes, Aslanbek Dadaev. On September 23, 2009, three suspects were charged.

Natalia Estemirova,
employee of the human rights center "Memorial", 50 years old

On the morning of July 15, 2009, Estemirova was abducted at her house in Grozny, she was pushed into a VAZ 2107 car and taken away in an unknown direction. Around 17.30 the body of Natalia Estemirova was found at the village of Gazi-Yurt in the Nazran district of Ingushetia.
The investigation calls the main version of the crime the human rights activity of the murdered. On October 19, the head of the SCP, Alexander Bastrykin, at a press conference in Moscow, said that the investigation of the murder of Natalia Estemirova was almost completed. However, neither direct killers nor customers of the crime have yet been named.

Maksharip Aushev,
businessman, Ingush oppositionist, former owner of the website Ingushetya.org, 43 years old

On October 25, 2009, at about 9.30 a.m. near Nalchik, unknown people shot a car from the machine guns in which Maksharip Aushev and his cousin Tausel Dzeitov were traveling. The opposition was killed on the spot, the passenger in extremely serious condition was taken to the hospital. Commenting on the murder of Aushev, the President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov did not exclude the involvement of representatives of law enforcement agencies in the crime. The UK at the prosecutor's office in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria made it clear that he did not consider the public or political activity of Maksharip Aushev as the main motives of the crime. “It is not ruled out that the murder could be committed in connection with the commercial activities of Aushev or by persons of criminal orientation with whom the murdered person had a relationship,” said the representative of the department Vladimir Markin. The investigation has not reported anything about the suspects.