Ramazan Magomedov, an employee of a private security company, has been sentenced to 15 years for the 2011 murder of the rector of the Institute of Theology and International Relations, Maksud Sadikov, and his nephew Zalimkhan Musaev.
His sentence was delivered on Wednesday by Daghestan’s Supreme Court. He pleaded not guilty.
Sadikov and Musaev were shot dead on 7 June 2011 near the rector’s home in Makhachkala. As a result of the attack, Marat Saifutdinov, editor-in-chief of the website Islam.ru, who had been invited to Sadikov’s home together with his wife, was also wounded. The attackers fled the scene. The criminal case remained unsolved for more than 10 years.
The investigation was reopened 11 years later in August 2022. The joint press service of the courts of Daghestan stated that, according to the prosecution, Magomedov, together with an unidentified accomplice, studied Sadikov’s daily routine, acquired a weapon and lay in wait for him in the courtyard of a residential building. According to the court, Musaev worked as his uncle’s bodyguard and carried a weapon, and the attackers therefore killed him as well.
The court indicated that investigators suspect that a former MP from Daghestan, Magomed Gadzhiev, might have commissioned the killing. According to the case materials, Gadzhiev allegedly acted through ‘persons unidentified by the investigation’ and did not contact the perpetrators directly.
Charges of organising the murder were brought against Gadzhiev in early June 2023. Investigators stated that the motive was linked to ‘personal hostility’. Several weeks earlier, the Russian Justice Ministry had added Gadzhiev to the register of ‘foreign agents’.
Following the announcement of the charges, the Daghestani Head Sergei Melikov publicly commented on the former MP, describing him as a ‘coward’ and a ‘traitor’. He added that Gadzhiev was ‘ready, for the sake of a European passport, to pour mud on everything that is close and dear: his fellow countrymen, friends, the republic, the country and even religion’.
In March 2023, Romanian media outlet Romania Breaking News published a video recording featuring a man resembling Gadzhiev. In the footage, he promises to introduce an interlocutor — Murat Aliev — who, as stated in the video, ‘can tell many interesting things’, in exchange for assistance in obtaining citizenship from an EU country. The authenticity of the recording has not been officially verified.
The US Treasury Department previously placed Aliev on its sanctions list, identifying him as the manager of assets belonging to Daghestani Senator Suleiman Kerimov. In open sources, Aliev is mentioned as a figure connected with business structures that US authorities associate with Kerimov’s circle.
In February 2024, the Russian Interior Ministry announced that Gadzhiev had been placed on a wanted list.
In July of that year, the Russian independent media outlet Project (Proekt) reported that Gadzhiev’s persecution in Russia was due to his conflict with his business partner, Daghestani billionaire Sultan Kerimov.
The verdict of the Supreme Court of Daghestan may be appealed in accordance with the law.
