Two policemen arrested in Dagestan on charges of aiding rebels
DAGESTAN, 31 July, Caucasus Times – Members of the directorate for combating organized crime have detained two police officers from a special fire team of the [Dagestan’s] Khasavyurtovskiy District internal affairs department suspected of aiding and abetting illegal armed formations.
It has been established that in late June the police officers gave members of illegal armed formations Rashid Islamov and the so-called amir [commander] of Chechnya’s Nozhay-Yurtovskiy front, Sultan Uspanov, alias Abdulgafur, a lift from a forest on the outskirts of the village of Almak in Dagestan’s Kazbekovskiy District in an Opel Ascona car, a spokesman for the law-enforcement agencies told a Caucasus Times correspondent.
Islamov was later detained by the law-enforcement agencies on 28 July. His testimony also brought to light the criminal activities of two Khasavyurt police officers. A Kalashnikov assault rifle, four F-1 grenades, 7.62-mm and 5.45-mm calibre cartridges and also three magazines to the Kalashnikov assault rifle were found and seized from the house of one of them.
The local prosecutor’s office has instituted criminal proceedings against the case under Article 208 (involvement in an illegal armed formation) and Article 222 (illegal possession of weapons and ammunition) of the Russian Criminal Code.
The internal security department of the Dagestani Interior Ministry is carrying out an in-house investigation into the case of the detained police officers.