19:35, 16 January 2026

Arrested Aidiev dismissed from his post as head of the Lak Resettlement Department

The head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, dismissed Magomed-Gadzhi Aidiev, head of the Dagestan government department for the resettlement of residents of the Novolaksky District and the restoration of the Aukhovsky District.

As reported by Kavkazsky Knot, on December 3, 2025, investigators reported the arrest of Magomed-Gadzhi Aidiev, former head of the Novolaksky District and head of the Dagestan government department for the resettlement of the Lak population of the Novolaksky District and the restoration of the Aukhovsky District. The Kirovsky District Court of Makhachkala later remanded Aidiev in custody for two months. According to investigators, he illegally distributed 37 land plots in villages that had not yet been formed.

About 700 families in the Novolaksky District were not included in the lists of those to be resettled for formal reasons. These refusals are being appealed in court. The main problem was the illegal transfer of land, participants in a meeting on the issue of resettlers said in October 2024. "Of these, 320 were denied because women from the Novolaksky District married outside the district and were registered there. According to clarifications from 2007, they allegedly had no right to marry outside the Novolaksky District or, in the event of a divorce, to return to their own homes. This is a unique legal precedent: women from the Novolaksky District, in order to receive resettler status, were required to marry only fellow villagers, work only in the Novolaksky District, and give birth only in the district. These illegal denials have had to be appealed in court, and more than 20 lawsuits have been upheld," Jamila Budaychieva, a lawyer representing the interests of the resettlers, told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent at the time.

The decree dismissing Aidiyev was signed by the head of the region, Sergei Melikov. A document dated January 14, 2026, was published on January 15 on the Dagestan legal information website.

Magomed-Gadzhi Aidiev has been dismissed from his post as head of the Dagestan government department for the resettlement of residents of the Novolaksky District to new residences and the restoration of the Aukhovsky District and has been dismissed from the Dagestan civil service, effective January 16, 2026, due to the expiration of his fixed-term service contract. "The decree shall enter into force on the day of its signing," the document states.

Magomed-Gadzhi Aidiev has led the Novolaksky District since 2007. In 2015, members of the Novolaksky District Assembly re-elected him as head.

On January 16, 2023, the head of Dagestan appointed Aidiyev as head of the Dagestan government department for the resettlement of the Lak population of the Novolaksky District and the restoration of the Aukhovsky District, according to the department's website.

The Aukhovsky District, where the Akkin Chechens lived compactly, was liquidated in 1944 after Stalin's deportation of Chechens and Ingush. The Novolaksky District was established in the northwestern part of the district. This part was settled by Laks from the mountainous region of Dagestan. The southeastern part of the district was transferred to the neighboring Kazbekovsky District, along with the villages of Yurt-Aukh and Aktash-Aukh, and settled by Avars from the neighboring village. Thirteen years later, in 1957, the Akkin Chechens, like the other deported Vainakh peoples, were allowed to return to their historical homeland.

In February 2024, local activists announced that the restoration of the Aukhovsky District, planned for completion by 2025, had effectively stalled. In March, residents of the village of Gamiyakh in the Novolaksky District appealed to the head of Dagestan demanding a moratorium on land privatization in the area where the Aukhovsky District is to be restored.

On September 26, 2024, the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Dagestan reported opening a criminal case against officials from the Novolaksky District for fraudulent land plot registration. District administration employees prepared false documents to obtain plots in the village of Novolakskoye for 40 residents who were not displaced persons, the department reported on its Telegram channel. Land fraud in Dagestan's Novolaksky District is hindering the restoration of historical justice for the descendants of Chechens deported in 1944. Although the Investigative Committee claimed that officials attempted to illegally transfer 40 land plots into private hands, the actual number of such plots may be tens of times greater, according to Arbi Batyrsultanov, Chairman of the Aukh Public Council.

The "Caucasian Knot" also reported that on February 6, 2021, Abakar Kaplanov, the former head of the village of Novokuli, was shot and killed in a Makhachkala police station. Two Rosgvardia officers were detained on suspicion of murder. Residents of Novokuli reported that the suspects had been in conflict with Kaplanov for a long time over a plot of land. Following the murder of Abakar Kaplanov, the former head of the village of Novokuli, authorities in the Novolaksky District conducted a land inventory in the village, and the commission identified instances of inefficient land distribution.

Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/419988