Politkovskaya’s murderer concealed himself using documents issued by
FSB, lawyers claim
The supposed murderer of the observer of the Novaja gazeta weekly newspaper
Anna Politkovskaya was able to conceal himself from the law enforcement bodies
by means of false documents, issued to him by the Russian Federal Security
Service (FSB), daily Kommersant writes. Rustam Makhmudov who had been hiding
abroad, has managed to avoid punishment for abduction of a person and to attribute
a passport owing to the fact that he was an informer of special services, lawyers
of the defendants declared.
During the trial in Moscow district military court, the accusers presented
two driver's licenses addressed to Rustam Makhmudov and Nail Zagidullin, withdrawn
at a search in the Moscow apartment where the defendants, brothers Dzhabrail
and Ibrahim Makhmudovs, lived.
Rustam Makhmudov "Experts, having analyzed these documents, have come to
conclusion that one and the same person is represented in the photos", specified
public prosecutor Yulia Safin.
The question what name used Makhmudov who is suspected in murder of the journalist
when he disappeared and has been using now disappearing from investigation, periodically
rises during process.
According to investigators, Rustam Makhmudov in 1997 actively participated in
abduction in Moscow of a certain businessman, Avelyan, and tried to extort a
large sum of money from him. In the end of 1998, practically all kidnappers were
arrested and sentenced. It was only Rustam Makhmudov who avoided punishment and
began to keep in hiding under assumed names.
Last time he used a document issued to a certain Nail Zagidullin from Tatarstan.
Investigators found the real Zagidullin and he informed that before leaving for
military service in 1994, he left his passport in the military registration and
enlistment office. Having returned home after demobilization, he did not take
away the passport. According to investigators, Rustam Makhmudov somehow received
his passport and then obtained with its help a driver’s licence and the
passport which he used to leave Russia.
According to the lawyers of defendants, Rustam Makhmudov avoided punishment for
abduction and extortion as he was an informer of the FSB and issued to him so-called
documents of cover. Indirect verification of this version are the readings given
to investigators by the chief-editor of the Novaja gazeta, Sergei Sokolov. He
approved that he knew that in 2005 or in 2006, Rustam Makhmudov together with
the former officer of the FSB Pavel Ryaguzov left for Rostov-on- the Don for
operative undertakings during which he identified the drug dealers and smugglers
detained there.