The court refused to request testimony from a security officer in the Kardashov murder case.

A witness in the case of Chechen security officials Aziev and Yusupov, who transported Alexei Kardashov, the manager of a Khasavyurt pharmacy, from Dagestan to Chechnya, told the court he remembers nothing. Lawyers for Kardashov's mother requested the witness's testimony in the pharmacist's murder case, but the court refused.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot," on February 24, the Gudermes Court began 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, searching his body, and inspecting his car in the fall of 2017. Both pleaded guilty. They face up to four years in prison, but they failed to appear for their first court hearing. The mother of the murdered Kardashov called the trial a "spectacle" and expressed confidence that it would not have an acceptable outcome.

At today's court hearing in the case of Aziev and Yusupov, witness Doukaev was questioned, but he did not provide any informative testimony, a representative of the Team Against Torture* told the Caucasian Knot.

"The witness said he no longer remembers anything about the case and asked to read out his testimony given during the investigation. When the prosecutor asked if he recognized the defendants, he replied that he didn't remember anything," she noted.

Dukaev's testimony from the investigation was read out in court; at that time, he refused to testify on the basis of Article 51 of the Constitution.

"The victim's representative petitioned to have Doukaev's testimony requisitioned from the case file against Omarov, as he recounts the same circumstances that are being examined here in court. The court denied the petition. The court did not consider the petition to return the case to the prosecutor," explained a representative of the CPT*. She added that neither the defendants nor their defense requested a special hearing procedure.

Alexei Kardashov's mother, Tsilya Yakubova, was not present at the hearing as she is currently in the hospital. She was unable to name specific points of the prosecution with which she disagreed.

“But I support the position of our defense. First and foremost, the injured party would like an adequate investigation into the criminal case of Kardashov's disappearance. As is known, Omarov has now been charged with Kardashov's murder, for the third time, but neither I nor the lawyer believe he is involved. We believe that Rosgvardia officers were involved in Kardashov's death,” she said.

The next court hearing is scheduled for May 26.

The case of Grozny resident Said-Magod Omarov, accused of murdering Alexei Kardashov, is currently being heard by the Gudermes City Court. Witnesses failed to appear for the May 5 hearing, and the court insists on their forced appearance. The next hearing in this case is scheduled for May 19.

The Omarov case was separated from the security forces' case in order to conceal the true circumstances of Kardashov's murder, human rights activist Dmitry Piskunov stated in 2020. "Most of the evidence of the guilt of the was simply transferred to a separate criminal case against Omarov so that we could not refer to this evidence in the trial <...>. It has reached the point of ridiculousness: Omarov's case now contains 20 volumes, and the case of the only 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.

Lawyers assess the practice of prosecuting security forces for planting drugs

The planting of drugs by security forces is a widespread phenomenon, but security forces are punished for it in "rare cases," lawyer Abusupyan Gaitayev told the "Caucasian Knot", not related to the case of Kardashov's kidnapping and murder. In his opinion, such cases always generate significant attention, and since they are so rare, "99% of lawyers don't personally encounter such precedents."

The lawyer recalled two similar cases. One was the attempted prosecution of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, detained in Moscow in June 2019, which ended with the case against him being completely dismissed. "In May 2021, the Moscow City Court sentenced five former police officers found guilty of falsifying evidence and drug trafficking in the journalist's case," Gaitayev said.

He also recalled the case of Frank Elkaponi (real name Fizuli Mammadov), who in the 2000s was the head of the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress and a major businessman. "I also remember the story of an Azerbaijani who lived in Italy and took a name similar to 'Alcapone.' There was even footage of him being detained. They slipped him a huge bag of drugs, and it turns out he had good connections. He told them, 'Guys, you shouldn't be doing this.' Then everyone who planted the drugs on him was jailed," the lawyer noted.

Mamedov-Elkaponi was detained in Moscow in 2001, and a large amount of cocaine was discovered during a search. Despite the seriousness of the charges, the case fell apart after a few months. In 2002, the Moscow criminal investigation officers involved in the arrests and the planting of the drugs themselves ended up in the dock, Gaitayev noted. Elkaponi was acquitted in 2003.

Lawyer Timofey Shirokov, also not involved in the Kardashov case, believes that the prosecution of law enforcement officers for planting drugs is "routine," but if the case doesn't have a political slant, little information is available about it.

"I remember how they arrested the Yuzhnoportovy Department of Internal Affairs in Moscow—there was no politics involved. A man simply came in with a statement that someone was extorting money from him, that drugs had been planted, and that he was sent to collect the money in exchange for not opening a criminal case. The Internal Security Directorate (FSB) was immediately brought in, they conducted an operational experiment, and everyone was caught mercilessly," he said.

According to the lawyer, these types of cases are initiated when police officers begin to conduct their illegal activities too openly, obviously for the benefit of their superiors. He noted that the Internal Security Directorate (ISD) needs to submit its own reports on the exposure of "werewolves" within its ranks.

"These cases are usually brought when they commit some serious blunder. This was exactly the case here, where they completely lost their nerve. Their colleagues were amazed. They said, 'How can they just send someone to collect money without supervision?' "We had to go with him and monitor him." Naturally, this was a good excuse for the Internal Security Directorate," Shirokov said.

* added to the Russian Ministry of Justice's register of foreign agents.

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