Shevchenko asks Putin to strengthen control over investigation into journalists' killings in Dagestan
Over the past year, the investigations into the killings of journalists in Dagestan, including the murder of Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, have shown no progress. This was reported to the Russian President by Maxim Shevchenko, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC).
Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev was killed on July 9, 2013, in the outskirt of Makhachkala. He became the 17th journalist killed in Dagestan in the last 20 years and the second employee of the "Caucasian Knot" killed during performance of his professional duties. On July 30, Russia’s investigators have suspended the preliminary investigation into the murder of journalist. In the end of September the decision to suspend the investigation was cancelled by the Kirov District Prosecutor's Office of Makhachkala.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in October 2014, following the meeting with members of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC), Vladimir Putin promised to draw the investigators' attention to the need to investigate the killings of journalists in Dagestan.
Today, the Russian President has again met the members of the HRC. At the meeting, Maxim Shevchenko, a member of the HRC, has delivered his speech and reported to the Russian President that the investigations into the criminal cases of the journalists' killings have not been properly developed.
Maxim Shevchenko has stated that in a number of criminal cases, the investigation has been actually stopped. He has mentioned as the examples the cases of the assassinations of Garun Kurbanov, the head of the information and analytical department and the press service of the President of Dagestan, Zagir Arukhov, Minister of National Policy, Information and External Relations, and Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.
On behalf of the Union of Journalists of Dagestan and relatives of the victims, Maxim Shevchenko has asked the Russian President "to instruct subordinates to create at the federal level a special team to investigate the killings of journalists and, perhaps, to assign to the FSB the operative support of those criminal cases."
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.
![Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Screenshot from video posted by Abu-Saddam Shishani [LIVE] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIR3s7AB0Uw](/system/uploads/article_image/image/0001/18460/main_image_Tumso.jpg "Tumso Abdurakhmanov. Screenshot from video posted by Abu-Saddam Shishani [LIVE] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIR3s7AB0Uw")