Lawyer Abubakarov: Bogatyryov's murder in Kabardino-Balkaria has no links with Nalchik attack case

There are no grounds to look for any links between the murder of Vitaly Bogatyryov, deputy head of the investigatory isolation facility (SIZO) of Russia's UFSIN (Department of the Federal Punishment Enforcement Service) for Kabardino-Balkaria, with the complaints against custody conditions in SIZO of the defendants in the case about the attack on Nalchik on October 13, 2005. This is the opinion of advocate Magomed Abubakarov.

"Apart from these 58 defendants, the SIZO keeps many other detainees, in total - up to a thousand persons. There are no grounds to connect the murder of deputy head with the case of 58 defendants. It is done to still more worsen their situation," Mr Abubakarov said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Reports about the murder of Vitaly Bogatyryov, deputy head of the SIZO of Russia's UFSIN for the KBR (Kabardino-Balkarian Republic), say that his name was mentioned by defendants at the Nalchik attack trial.

In the opinion of Magomed Abubakarov, apart from Bogatyryov, many other people work at the SIZO, against whom the detainees complained. On some of them they complained even more than on Bogatyryov.

At today's press conference at the Prosecutor's Office of Kabardino-Balkaria, Asker Masaev, head of the division for supervising criminal-remedial actions of law-enforcement bodies and criminal-executive system, said that "it is difficult to speak about Bogatyryov's murder versions."

"He was the head of an operative unit, and he had "admirers" both behind bars and at large," Mr Masaev has noted.

According to his story, the Prosecutor's Office of the KBR has no data about Bogatyryov using any illegal methods in his work with detainees.

We remind you that on May 14 at 7:00 p.m., Kommunisticheskaya Street in Nalchik, near his house and some 500 meters off his workplace, Vitaly Bogatyryov, deputy head of the SIZO of Russia's UFSIN for the KBR, was shot dead from a passing car. 16 shells, presumably from a pistol-machine gun, were found in the place of the crime.