Translated material
Sentence with continuation
The killer of Ingush oppositionist Evloev intends to seek his acquittal
The Karabulak District Court of Ingushetia on Friday handed down a verdict in the scandalous case of the murder of the famous Ingush oppositionist, owner of the website “Ingushetia.ru” and member of the Moscow Bar Association Magomed Evloev. He was shot dead last year in a police car while being brought in for questioning. Companions of the deceased immediately stated that this was an open reprisal by local authorities against an undesirable politician, but the court agreed with the prosecution’s version that Magomed Yevloev was a victim of simple negligence of one of the policemen accompanying him. As a result, the defendant - Ingushetia Ministry of Internal Affairs employee Ibragim Evloev (his victim's namesake) - was sentenced to only two years in a penal colony.Considering that the death of an oppositionist who harshly criticized the republican authorities became the cause of a huge scandal, which in turn served as one of the reasons for changing the leadership of Ingushetia, this outcome of this criminal case did not suit either side. Relatives of Magomed Evloev have already announced that they will appeal against him and will seek to have his death recognized as a premeditated murder. The convict's lawyer, in turn, said that he would also appeal the verdict, seeking a complete acquittal of the client. According to his version, the death of an oppositionist in a police car was not even criminal negligence, but generally an accident - “the victim hitting the barrel of a pistol.”
Magomed Evloev was shot dead in Ingushetia on August 31 last year. That day he arrived at Magas airport, returning from Moscow. I flew on the same plane with Murat Zyazikov, the then president of Ingushetia, whose resignation Mr. Evloev and his comrades in the opposition sought. The president was taken away by his motorcade, and another was immediately waiting for the oppositionist, consisting of high-ranking employees of the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs and the guards of its head Mussa Medov. Evloev was told that he had been summoned for questioning as a witness in one of the criminal cases and therefore must immediately go with them to the investigator. The human rights activist was put in a police UAZ, but they never got to the investigator because Evloev was killed on the way.
The employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs justified themselves by saying that the lawyer and human rights activist allegedly began to take away the machine gun from the policeman accompanying him, and Ibragim Yevloev, who was sitting next to him - the head of Mr. Medov's security - just so happened to be holding a cocked pistol in his hand for some reason. As a result, according to the official version, this pistol fired from an accidental push, and the bullet hit the oppositionist directly in the temple.
Relatives of Magomed Evloev and his associates immediately called the incident a murder and reprisal by the authorities against an unwanted politician. To confirm this, they said that a conflict occurred between the human rights activist and Mr. Zyazikov on the plane. In addition, according to the father of the murdered man, Yahya Evloev, his son was constantly threatened before, their house was shelled. “And three days before the murder, four cars with Medov’s people drove up to the house, they burst into my room and threatened that if my son continued to engage in opposition activities, I would get his corpse,” he said.
Moreover, later the investigator of the Nazran City Department of Internal Affairs, Dzhambulat Shankhoyev, to whom Mr. Evloev was allegedly supposed to be delivered, publicly admitted that he signed the order for forced interrogation on that fateful day on the orders of his superiors and after the oppositionist was shot.
Nevertheless, in the end, only a case of “causing death by negligence” was brought against the security guard. At the same time, the investigation did not explain the disappearance of the case containing 3 million rubles, which the oppositionist was carrying with him and which disappeared without a trace after his death. A criminal case was opened into this fact, but, according to the relatives of the deceased, who insisted that both cases be combined into one, the investigation into the missing money has still not progressed at all. Also, the relatives of Magomed Evloev failed to get a criminal case initiated against the police officers who detained the oppositionist before his death, although the illegality of their actions was recognized by the court.
The case of the negligent death of human rights activist Evloev by policeman Evloev was transferred to the Nazran District Court for consideration back in October last year. But the process did not start. Until May of this year, hearings were postponed for various reasons, and then all the judges of this court, one after another, recused themselves. As a result, in July, the Supreme Court of Ingushetia, by a strong-willed decision, sent the case to the Karabulak District Court for consideration. Despite the violent protests of the victims, the essence of the charge against Ibragim Evloev, who was allowed not to go to court due to his allegedly poor health, remained the same. The same version was confirmed in the verdict handed down last Friday. According to the lawyer for the victims, Magomed Gandarov, in order to be convinced that the prosecutor’s office was right, the court needed to interrogate only two people - the accused himself and another policeman who was on the day of “causing death by negligence” in the very car where it was caused. Such carelessness, according to the verdict, will cost Ibragim Evloev two years in a penal colony.
“We do not agree with this decision,” said Yahya Evloev. “This was not a murder by negligence, but a deliberate, prepared and organized crime.” The father of the Ingush oppositionist said that he will definitely appeal the verdict, although he does not really believe that this will change anything. He also intends to complain about the bias in the investigation into the death of his son to the European Court of Human Rights.
In turn, the lawyer of the convicted person, Sharip Tepsayev, also wants to have the case reviewed and the policeman acquitted. “This is a man (Ibragim Evloev. - Ed. ) with an impeccable reputation, a police captain, has awards,” the lawyer said. “There was no negligence or frivolity in the actions of my client. He did not fire a shot, the shot occurred due to the victim hitting the barrel of a gun, this has been proven, there is a conclusion.”