Litigation on murder of Abashilov, head of the SRTC "Dagestan", starts in Dagestan

Today, the Supreme Court of Dagestan started considering the criminal case on the murder of Magomedgadji Abashilov, Director of the State Radio and Television Company (SRTC) "Dagestan", committed on March 21, 2008, in Makhachkala, with interrogating the victims and prosecution's witness. The trial is held with participation of a board of jurymen.

The dock keeps two suspected gunmen - Elchin Gasanov, a citizen of Azerbaijan and resident of Essentuki, and Ruslan Gitinomagomedov, a native of Dagestan, who refuse to admit their guilt. The suffered party is represented by Shamil - Magomedgadji Abashilov's son - and Ahmed Abakarov, his driver-bodyguard, who was wounded at the attack.

Shamil Abashilov moved a petition to send the case to additional investigation, since, in his opinion, it has a lot of defects, and - the main thing - fails to answer the main question - who the customer and the organizer of the crime are.

However, as reported by the RIA "Dagestan", the court decided to reject the petition, as, according to the judge, the defendants are in custody for a long time and have the right to have their case fairly considered.

After interrogation of the suffered party, one prosecution's witness was interrogated - also an Essentuki resident like defendant Gasanov. He told on how, when and under what circumstances he had learnt about the participation, according to his story, of the defendants in the crime.

As reported by the "Gazeta.Ru", most of the witness' evidences were based on the words of another person, who had earlier figured as a participant of the crime, and now is a witness.

Then, the court announced a break till 10:00 a.m. on May 24.