Former State Duma deputy killed in Dagestan

11.08.2003

By Yuri Safronov

MAKHACHKALA, August 11 (Itar-Tass) -- Former State Duma deputy Nadyrshakh Khachilayev was killed in Makhachkala on Monday.

The car, in which Khachilayev was riding, was fired at about 7.30 p.m. (1530 GMT) presumably from a Zhiguli car that escaped from the scene of the crime, the republic's Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass.

An investigation has begun.

This is the second such incident in Makhachkala in one day. Earlier, a police officer from the Dagestani Interior Ministry's anti-organised crime department was killed outside his house in Makhachkala.

Two unidentified persons approached Tagir Abdulayev at the entrance to his house and fired a Makarov gun at him pointblank in the presence of a large number of onlookers and escaped, the republic's Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass.

Investigators have arrived at the scene of the crime.

Leader of Islamic opposition shot dead in Dagestan

TEXT: Irina Petrakova  Photo by S. Ponomarev

A prominent Dagestani politician, the former State Duma deputy Nadirshakh Khachilayev, was killed in the centre of Makhachkala on Monday evening. Police have already found the weapons used and a car abandoned by the assassins on the outskirts of the city. According to police reports an assault rifle used to kill the politician had been on a search list in Chechnya for several years.

The influential former State Duma deputy and staunch opponent of the Dagestani president was killed in Makhachkala, the capital of the North-Caucasian republic, on Monday evening. According to local police, the murder took place at 19.30 when Khachilayev together with a friend drove up in his black Land Cruiser to the gate of his private house in Titova Street, in the very centre of Makhachkala.

As the Land Cruiser approached the gate it was overtaken by a Lada-99 car, carrying a masked gunman who fired several submachine bursts at Khachilayev's jeep. The politician was fatally wounded in the heart and in the shoulder and died before doctors and police arrived at the scene. Khachilayev's friend was slightly wounded in the left arm and hospitalized. The doctors said his life is out of danger.

City authorities launched special operation Perekhvat, or Interception, to catch the killers and some two hours later the police found the Lada car abandoned in the outskirts of Makhachkala. The republican prosecutor's office told Gazeta.Ru that inside the car, which the criminals had tried to set alight, the police found a Kalashnikov rifle and a Kedr submachine gun that had been on a search list in Chechnya since 1996.

A passport belonging to a resident of Khasavyurt was found in the car. Police have established that the person in whose name it was issued had bought the Lada and then given it to three Chechens. The car owner has been detained for questioning, though the prosecutors believe it unlikely that he was involved in Khachilayev's murder. Investigators said in the last few months the car was resold four times. In the meantime, the search for the gunmen is continuing in the republic.

Presently, investigators are working on several leads ranging from a terror attack staged by Chechen rebels to a political motive, though none of them is considered primary.

The opposition activist had planned to take part in this year's  elections to the State Duma in December. The former deputy had been mulling the move for several months. Many in the republic may have seen his anti-government position disagreeable and in the opinion of colleagues and friends, the politician's murder was plotted by the special services.

Not long before his death Khachilayev met with a high-ranking Dagestani official who openly warned Khachilayev that he would be ''ground into dust'' should he nominate himself for a post in the lower house.

According to another lead, the murder of the insurgent Khachilayev was the result of a blood feud after the events in Makhachkala in May 1998. Then, armed supporters of Khachilayev captured the building of the State Council of Dagestan and hoisted green flags of Islam on its roof. Nadirshakh and his brother Magomed, leaders of the Lak national movement, led the armed mutiny and for over 24 hours had control over the government compound.

Both brothers were later also charged with complicity in the murder of three policemen during riots. In September 1998 the State Duma stripped Khachilayev of his parliamentary immunity and his name was put on the federal wanted list. In 2000 the former deputy went on trial, but was released from custody under the amnesty act.

The member of the Federation Council [the upper house of Russia's parliament] for the government of Ingushetia, Issa Kostoyev, told ITAR-TASS that ''there were many people who harboured serious grievances against the Khachilayev brothers''.

He recalled that in the wake of the Dagestani State Council siege in 1998 many people were killed. ''Proceeding from Caucasian customs, `demand' for Nadirshakh Khachilayev, is high,'' the senator  said.

12 August 15:50 Gazeta ru