SK: Estemirov killed Bashaev

The version of involvement in the murder of human rights activist Natalia Estemirova Alhazur Bashaev and other participants in the gang of Islam Upakhadzhiev was confirmed. According to RIA Novosti, this was announced by the representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin. “The investigation considers revenge for Estemirova’s publication in the media about the revenge of Bashayev’s recruitment and the attack on the family of the Moscow businessman, as well as discrediting state authorities of the Chechen Republic,” he said.

"In connection with the need to carry out the planned investigative actions, the preliminary investigation is extended to 28 months, that is, until November 15, 2011," added Markin.

According to investigators, early on the morning of July 15, 2009, Bashaev, together with other gang participants in the VAZ-2107 car, arrived at Estemirova’s house on Bogdan Khmelnitsky Street in Grozny, waited for the human rights activist to leave the entrance, stole it and took it to the territory of Ingushetia. On the same day, Bashayev killed Estemirov in the vicinity of the village of Gazi-Yurt of the Nazran district of the republic.

"The investigation collected sufficient evidence of Bashayev’s guilt in the murder of Estemirova. Bashaev put on the international wanted list and, at the request of the investigation, the court in absentia was made to choose a preventive measure in the form of detention," Markin recalled.

On the eve of human rights activists published a report "Two years after the murder of Natalia Estemirova: the investigation goes along the false path." On July 5, the head of the Civil Assistance Foundation Svetlana Gannushkina handed it to President Dmitry Medvedev during the visiting meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society Institutes and Human Rights.

According to human rights activists, the investigation has no serious evidence of Alkhazur Bashayev’s involvement in the abduction and murder of Natalia Estemirova. The “evidence base” contained in the criminal case materials allows you to suspect the deliberate construction of these evidence in order to make the Bashaev version of the main one, the report said. According to human rights activists, the investigation did nothing to verify the version of the involvement in the crime of any other persons, including employees of state law enforcement agencies through a comparative analysis of DNA.