Translated material
Money or revenge
Investigators threaten new arrests in the case of mass murder in Kuban
The head of the Investigative Committee at the Prosecutor's Office, Alexander Bastrykin, yesterday reported to State Duma deputies on the progress of the investigation into the murder of 12 people in the Kuban village of Kushchevskaya, which shook the entire country. He said that in addition to the six already arrested, new defendants will likely appear in the case, including, possibly, local officials and law enforcement officers who connived with the bandits. However, it seems that the investigation has not yet been able to establish the full picture of the tragedy. At least it is still unknown what caused the savage massacre. According to Mr. Bastrykin, the investigation has two versions on this matter - blood feud or attempted robbery.Yesterday it became known that the Investigative Committee, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office decided to send their special commissions to Kushchevskaya, which will study and, if necessary, re-investigate all criminal cases in which the local police did not take any action.
Mr. Bastrykin’s speech to members of the State Duma Security Committee took place behind closed doors, but at the end he answered questions from journalists. “The motives that guided the bandits are two main versions: either blood feud based on the possible murder of one of the residents of the village - Tsapok’s older brother (the leader of the local criminal group - Ed. ). And the second version is a robbery with the aim of seizing a large amount of money,” he said. Earlier, the UPC stated that they were considering five versions of what happened. Recalling that six people have already been arrested in this case, the head of the Investigative Committee noted that “these are not the last detentions and arrests, as we assume.” Mr. Bastrykin did not rule out that criminal cases could be initiated against local officials and law enforcement officers under articles of “negligence,” “abuse of official position,” or “exceeding official authority.” “The investigation will show this,” he said. - As a lawyer, I cannot anticipate the results of the audit. We had too little time, since we were mainly engaged in apprehending criminals. We will also check the employees of the UPC departments in the district. In the event that we discover unfounded refusals to initiate criminal cases, we will resume these cases and, of course, will resolve issues of responsibility of UPC employees.”
The head of the Duma Security Committee, Vladimir Vasiliev, in turn, said that, according to the SKP, 28 reports of rape were filed in the village of Kushchevskaya, but only three cases were opened on them. “All this material is being reviewed and re-evaluated,” he said. According to him, in Kushchevskaya there are now not only 50 investigators working on the murder case, but also another group investigating crimes committed earlier. According to him, despite the fact that citizens filed complaints about crimes to law enforcement agencies, no measures were taken. “Decisions will be made anew with an assessment of the actions of officials,” Mr. Vasiliev said. - This applies not only to cases of rape, but also to other crimes for which cases were either not initiated or were refused; It is possible that cases that were intended to be hidden will also come to light.”
Yesterday, the Main Department of Internal Affairs of the Krasnodar Territory addressed the population of Kushchevskaya with a request to report crimes that had not been reported previously. “The fact is that some media reported about allegedly 220 girls being raped, however, according to statistics, in this area over five years, a total of 47 applications were filed,” said the head of the press service of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate, Igor Zhelyabin.
Let us recall that on Wednesday, at a meeting of the Security Council in Krasnodar, the head of the region, Alexander Tkachev, dismissed the deputy head of the Kushchevsky district, Nikolai Nalivaiko, and expressed his no confidence in the entire leadership of the Kushchevsky District Department of Internal Affairs. “All of them made serious omissions in their work and openly let the criminal situation in the Kushchevsky district get out of control,” the governor noted.
Meanwhile, the former head of the Kushchevsky District Department of Internal Affairs, Viktor Burnosov, said at a press conference yesterday that there was “no and never was” an organized criminal group in the area, in the sense that this concept is understood in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and those detained in this case were only "group". According to Mr. Burnosov, he himself submitted his resignation when he learned about the involvement of area residents in the murder of 12 people. At the same time, the ex-head of the regional police department complained that the state of affairs with crime in Kushchevskaya was covered by the media biasedly, and during the three years that he headed the local police, his deputies and personnel, “sparing no effort, worked to ensure law and order and fight crime "
Yesterday, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, promised to draw serious conclusions from the tragedy in Kushchevskaya. “The decision of the head of the Kushchevsky District Department of Internal Affairs to resign is objective in this situation,” the minister said. According to him, a group from the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of 22 officers was sent to the village to “objectively understand the current situation.” “Based on the results of the inspection, other organizational conclusions will be made,” Mr. Nurgaliev promised.
Let us recall that the brutal murder in the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory, occurred on the night of November 5 in the house of local farmer Severer Ametov, to whom guests had arrived on the occasion of a family holiday the day before. During the celebration, several criminals broke into the house, stabbed ten people to death, and strangled two babies. Before leaving, they set the house on fire. Among those killed was the farmer's family - himself, his wife, daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law's nine-month-old daughter and their guests: a neighbor with a 14-year-old son and financial director of Rostov OJSC Aston Vladimir Mironenko, as well as his wife, two young daughters and his wife's parents . The suspects were detained less than a week later. They turned out to be local residents, the Gurov brothers - 23-year-old Alexey and 20-year-old Evgeniy, 16-year-old Igor Maydanyuk and 17-year-old resident of Rostov-on-Don Vyacheslav Skachedub. According to the investigation, the detainees were part of an organized crime group that had been operating in the village since the mid-90s. On Monday, investigators announced the arrest of the alleged mastermind of the massacre and the leader of the group, Sergei Tsapok, as well as another suspect, Sergei Tsepovyaz.