The arrest was
announced
on February 24 of five men suspected of plotting and perpetrating the
killing in June 2009 of Daghestan's interior minister, Lieutenant
General Adilgirey Magomedtagirov.
The suspects, from Daghestan's
Botlikh Raion, are all current or former employees of the armed forces
or law enforcement organs, according to the Russian daily "
Kommersant."
But the paper quoted relatives as saying that all five have cast-iron
alibis for the day of the killing. They have been taken to Vladikavkaz,
the capital of North Ossetia, where at least one of them has reportedly
been subjected to torture to force him to confess to the murder.
Magomedtagirov
was an Avar, as was then-President Mukhu Aliyev, whom Magomedtagirov
reportedly hoped to succeed. He was shot dead by a sniper on the street
in Makhachkala as he left a restaurant where he had put in a cameo
appearance at a party to celebrate the wedding of a colleague's
daughter. The weapon used was reportedly a highly sophisticated rifle
issued only to the Federal Security Service (FSB) and military
intelligence.
Independent Daghestani media reported that
Magomedtagirov's decision to attend the wedding party was spontaneous.
Some observers have inferred that he may have been killed at the behest
of a rival faction within his ministry. But within days, the Shariat
jamaat, the
oldest and best organized militant Islamic formation in Daghestan,
claimed responsibility for Magomedtagirov's death.
Footage
of the shooting by a sniper on a Makhachkala street of a police officer
resembling Magomedtagirov was posted in September on the Shariat jamaat
website.
The insurgency had tried on
two previous occasions
to kill Magomedtagirov, in August 2006 and February 2007.
Magomedtagirov's espousal of disproportionate force when conducting
"counterterror" operations against peaceful law-abiding believers
falsely suspected of ties to the insurgency impelled countless young
Muslims to take up arms against the regime.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Five_Arrested_In_Killing_Of_Daghestans_Interior_Minister/1969197.html