In the new verdict in the case of the murder of a deputy from Agidel, the court did not evaluate the actions of the security forces

The Supreme Court of Bashkortostan yesterday handed down a new sentence to the perpetrators of the murder of Agidel City Council deputy Ildar Nafikov. He was burned in October 2005 in a country house because he refused to pay money to the criminal common fund. The court named the perpetrators of the arson as the perpetrators of the crime. Unemployed Rinat Nasirov and worker, participant in military operations in Chechnya Vildan Fayazov were sentenced to 19 years, three months and 15.5 years in prison in a maximum security colony, respectively. The second trial slightly reduced their sentences. The investigation has still not been able to find the organizer of the murder, who is believed to be crime boss Alexei Chepkasov.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Bashkiria sentenced unemployed resident of Agidel Rinat Nasirov to 19 years and three months in prison and high-altitude worker and veteran of military operations in the Chechen Republic Vildan Fayazov to 15.5 years, finding them guilty for the second time of carrying out the murder of Agidel city council deputy, businessman Ildar Nafikova. The three judges who considered the case admitted that on the night of October 8, 2005, the defendants entered the businessman’s country house on the territory of the Bulgarnefteprodukt company he owned, spilled gasoline, and then set it on fire. The entrepreneur was unable to get out of the burning cottage and died. The actions of the perpetrators were qualified under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Murder by prior conspiracy in a generally dangerous manner” and Part 2 of Article 167 “Deliberate destruction of property by arson.”

The alleged organizer of the high-profile murder - investigators consider him to be Alexey Chepkasov, a crime boss from the city of Agidel - has not yet been found. Since May 2010, he has been on the federal wanted list. The case against him has been separated into separate proceedings.

The investigation considered the repeated refusal of the deputy-entrepreneur to contribute money to the criminal “common fund” as the main motive for the murder. Observers also saw a political motive in the arson of the deputy’s house. According to Bashkir human rights activist Konstantin Potnin, “the version that Nafikov’s political activities were actually the basis was not heard in court. In the city council, he constantly demanded to check the budgetary expenses allocated to entrepreneurs close to city administration officials.”

It took the Bashkir investigation five years to identify the perpetrators of the murder. For several years, Agidel’s law enforcement agencies denied the version of a contract killing, believing that the deputy’s death was the result of a fire due to a faulty electric heater. Members of Ildar Nafikov’s family, first of all, his father and the main owner of Bulgarnefteprodukt LLC, Fandavis Nafikov, who filed numerous complaints about the actions of Bashkir investigators with the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, achieved the initiation of a criminal case on the fact of arson.

After repeated attempts to close the case, it was investigated by the Neftekamsk department of the Investigative Committee under the Bashkortostan Prosecutor's Office and sent to court.

At the first trial in May 2011, the perpetrator of the murder, Rinat Nasirov, was sentenced to 19.5 years, and Vildan Fayazov was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Thus, during the retrial, which was sought by the defendants' lawyers, who insisted on their innocence, the sentences were reduced by several months. Yesterday, the lawyers of Rinat Nasirov and Vildan Fayazov, Nikolai Sokolov and Farida Nasibullina, said yesterday that the death of the deputy was the result of an accident, and their clients allegedly incriminated themselves under pressure from the investigative authorities.

The Russian Supreme Court agreed that the first trial was carried out with violations. In particular, the sentence was passed by three judges, one of whom had previously chosen a preventive measure for one of the defendants. The second trial in the case in the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan began in the fall of 2011.

It is interesting that during the new trial, the court, in addition to mitigating the sentence of the perpetrators, did not issue a private ruling to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. Based on the results of the first trial, he pointed out that employees of the prosecutor’s office, investigation and police in Bashkiria for a long time prevented an objective investigation and identification of those responsible for the crime. In particular, the ruling of the Supreme Court indicated that the head of the internal affairs department of Agideli, Radus Salyakhov, and the former city prosecutor Ramil Khabirov, “instead of taking the necessary measures to quickly resolve the crime, in every possible way prevented its solution,” and the city police department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkiria did not take the necessary measures to find the organizer.

Konstantin Potnin believes that the case was sent for review in order to remove the private definition.

The lawyer of the injured party, Fairuz Sharipov, told Kommersant that he was satisfied with the verdict. But he believes that the convicts will again try to appeal against him.

Arthur Asafiev

The Armed Forces did without private