The case of the security forces who took Kardashov from Dagestan to Chechnya has reached court.

Former police officers Kalogi Aziev and Alikhan Yusupov did not appear at the first hearing.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," in November 2024, the Supreme Court of Chechnya refused to uphold the appeal of the sentence of Grozny resident Said-Magomed Omarov, who was convicted of the murder of Dagestani pharmacist Alexei Kardashov.

The Gudermes District Court of the Chechen Republic has begun hearing the criminal case against former drug enforcement officers Kalogi Aziev and Alikhan Yusupov. They are accused of illegally transporting Alexei Kardashov from Dagestan to Chechnya, conducting a body search, and searching his vehicle in the fall of 2017.

Both defendants pleaded guilty. They face up to four years in prison, but they failed to appear at their first court hearing, the "Team Against Torture"* (KPP), whose lawyers previously represented the victims—Kardashov's relatives—reported today on their Telegram channel.

As a reminder, Alexey Kardashov, who owned a pharmacy in Khasavyurt, left home on September 14, 2017, and never returned. His body has still not been found. Investigators believe that National Guard officers Bekkhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Doukayev took Kardashov to Chechnya and left him with Said-Magomed Omarov, who killed Kardashov during an argument. The prosecution of Abdurashidov and Doukayev was based on Omarov's testimony during the investigation in Dagestan. However, after the case was transferred to Chechnya, he suddenly signed a confession. In November 2020, the Gudermes City Court sentenced Omarov to nine years in a maximum-security prison for the murder of Kardashov and the theft of his car.

Human rights activists criticized Omarov's sentence

Omarov's case was separated from the security forces' case in order to conceal the true circumstances of Kardashov's murder, human rights activist Dmitry Piskunov previously stated. "Most of the evidence proving the guilt of the Chechen security forces was simply transferred to a separate criminal case against Omarov so that we couldn't refer to this evidence in court... It's reached the point of ridiculousness: Omarov's case now contains 20 volumes, while the case against the security forces only contains six. Yes, Omarov was involved in a crime, but not the one for which he was found guilty by the court," Piskunov told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He pointed out signs of pressure exerted on Omarov. "His testimony, which he gave in September 2018 in Khasavyurt, before turning himself in, was quite coherent, and it was supported by billing records, CCTV footage, etc. But everything changed when the case was transferred to Chechnya. It's quite possible that Said-Magomed and his family were somehow intimidated. This was evident primarily in the fact that he made no attempt to defend himself in the criminal trial; he never commented on anything, never gave any testimony, and always silently agreed with everything. And it's quite possible that this is due to the fact that either he or his family could have been threatened by those interested in this outcome of the criminal case," Piskunov believes.

* is included in the register of foreign agents.

** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.