Trial to start near Moscow of OMON fighters, suspected of kidnapping members of Armenian Diaspora

On October 25, the Vidnoe City Court of the Moscow Region will hold the first session on the case of OMON (riot police) agents, accused of kidnapping members of the Armenian Diaspora in Moscow for ransom.

The name of one of the abductees is already known - Yurik Abramyan, 39, a native of Yerevan.

The following former and current employees of the OMON unit named "Zubr" of the Russian MIA - Andrei Demidenkov, Konstantin Dozorov, Alexei Karmanov, Sergey Kotov, and also Sergey Otrakovskiy and Samvel Voskanyan - will face trial. As reported by the press service of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), the grouping was headed Akop Meliksetyan, who is well-known in criminal circles.

According to investigators, in September 2009 Meliksetyan organized a kidnapping with the aim to extort money. For this purpose he recruited former and current OMON agents, who on September 24 kidnapped and for almost a month kept the victim. However, on October 20, 2009, the hostage was released through actions of law enforcers. That special operation put an end to the four-year-long series of kidnappings of the members of the Armenian Diaspora in Moscow.

So far, there are no comments made by defendants or their advocates.