Militiamen in Astrakhan oblast found guilty of serious crimes

Today, the jury has adopted an indictment against a group of Astrakhan militiamen headed by Rinat Salekhov, chief of Astrakhan oblast internal affairs department on combating organized crime, the members of which are accused of murders, gansterism, money laundering and falsification of evidence.

For reference, on May 13, 2008, Rinat Salekhov was already sentenced by Privolzhski district court for violating traffic regulations entailing the death of two persons and inflicting serious damage to the health of the third victim, and was serving his sentence in a colony. Meanwhile, the case of a road accident is only one of fifteen criminal cases in which the former chief of Astrakhan department on combating organized crime was suspected of complicity.

"The jury has adopted an indictment with regard to Rinat Salekhov, the former chief of Astrakhan oblast internal affairs department on combating organized crime, and Yuri Krasheninnikov, Andrei Klykanov, Vladimir Grigorshev and Maxim Sokolov, the former militia officers", cites "Interfax" the words of Vladimir Markin, official representative of the RF ICP.

The investigation has established that Salekhov formed a gang out of his subordinates and active members of Astrakhan criminal groups. The aim of the gang was to attack individuals and organizations using firearms and other weapons at the disposal of the gang, theft of other people's property by fraud, illegal prosecution of persons opposing the criminal plans of Salekhov and other members of the gang.

According to the data of the RF ICP, during five years, from 2003 to 2007, Salekhov and his accomplices committed a series of murders and other serious crimes. Specifically, lawyers and Viacheslav Belonenko, the Cossack ataman, reports "Rosbalt".

For instance, in 2004, the gang leader, together with Krasheninnikov, organized the murder of Yevgheni Zamoskovichev, chairman of Guild of Moscow Advocates. According to the investigation, the lawyer defended several businessmen with regard to whom Rinat Salekhov had fabricated criminal cases. "In court, Zamoskovichev secured their acquittal; in effect, this was Salekhov's revenge", note investigating officers.

The gang members fabricated evidence on the criminal case initiated on the fact of the murder of the lawyer. As a result, the criminals took to criminal responsibility an innocent local resident who actively hampered their plans.

According to the investigation data, in November of the same year, Salekhov and Krasheninnikov attacked Mimbulatov and, using torture, forced him to confess of committing a number of especially serious crimes.

In April 2005, upon Salekhov's instruction, the gang members launched a daytime attack on a lawyers' company in Astrakhan and inflicted numerous knife wounds on its employers Igor Rozenberg and Sergei Zhalilov who subsequently died.

The defendants have also been found guilty of murdering Belanenko, leader of an organized criminal group, in summer 2005.

Some former colleagues of the gang leader think that he is simply a "scapegoat". "Now they are attributing to Salekhov the entire load of notorious cases which investigators have accumulated during the recent years", notes a source at the Astrakhan internal affairs department.