22:49, 4 April 2018

Resident of Chechnya sentenced for an attempt on Imam in Ingushetia

The court sentenced a 37-year-old resident of Grozny, found guilty for an assassination attempt on Ingush Imam Isa Tsechoev, to ten years of imprisonment.

Rights defenders associated the assassination attempt with threats from Chechnya. On February 2, 2016, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov banned a dialogue with Salafis and criticized Khamzat Chumakov and Isa Tsechoev, religious figures of Ingushetia. The Chechen leader said that if they tried to read a sermon in Chechnya, then "they would lose their heads."

According to the verdict of the court, the resident of Grozny agreed to kill the well-known religious leader for 30,000 US dollars.

The first assassination attempt took place on August 27, 2016. The Grozny resident was to give a signal to an armed group of men about appearance of the Imam in the mosque in Ali-Yurt, but the Imam did not come there. On August 30, 2016, the defendant parked a car with explosives near the same mosque to activate the bomb when the Imam would come close to the car. However, the suspicious car was noticed and disarmed in due time, the Prosecutor's Office reports.

In December 2016, the defendant was detained, and a grenade was found in his car.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.