The court overturned the decision to release from punishment a former policeman from Dagestan who killed his wife

The Fifth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction overturned the decision to release Tagir Velagaev from punishment in the case of the murder of his wife (Article 107 of the Criminal Code). This was reported by the human rights project “Axiom”.

The case will be considered by the Supreme Court of Dagestan - for the third time.

In November 2021, the Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala sentenced Velagaev to two years, but in the spring of 2022, the Supreme Court of Dagestan released him from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution.

In February 2019, 46-year-old Velagaev killed his 48-year-old ex-wife Umuzhat Guseinova. The former policeman struck her four times on the head with the handle of a traumatic pistol and strangled her, and then wrapped the corpse in a carpet.

Velagaev claimed that on the day of the murder, Huseynova began to insult his daughters from another marriage and wished for them to become “prostitutes.”

According to the son of the murdered woman, Velagaev often “came to her drunk and broke the entrance doors.”

Initially, the criminal case was investigated under the article of murder (Article 105 of the Criminal Code), but then the investigation reclassified it to a milder one - murder committed in a state of passion (Article 107 of the Criminal Code).

Huseynova’s body was discovered 12 days later, after neighbors noticed an unpleasant smell in the entrance. Velagaev wrote a confession only after his arrest.

In 2020, the Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala sentenced Velagaev to the same two years of restriction of freedom, but the Supreme Court of Dagestan overturned the decision and sent the case for a new trial. The lawyer of the injured party, Arsen Shabanov, then insisted that the former policeman be charged with a more serious article of the Criminal Code.