Murtazali Gasanguseynov, the father of two teen shepherds he believes were killed by security forces, has held a solo picket in Makhachkala, Daghestan, stating that the investigation into the deaths of his sons has been ‘stalling’ for nine years.
The brothers Nabi and Gasanguseyn Gasanguseynov, aged 17 and 19, were shot dead in August 2016 near their home village of Goor-Khindakh, in the Shamil District of Daghestan.
At the time of the killings, the head of the Shamil District Police, Ibrahim Aliyev, claimed that brothers were killed by return fire after opening fire on police and Federal Security Service (FSB) officers conducting a search operation. The FSB later denied holding any operation in the area that day.
During his solo picket on Tuesday, Gasanguseynov held a placard reading: ‘Aleksandr Ivanovich Bastrykin, who killed my children?’, addressing the Head of Russia’s Investigative Committee.
According to Gasanguseynov, a new lawyer who recently took on the case after a three-year pause has still not been granted access to the case files, and he himself has stopped receiving notifications about the extension of investigative activities.
Police officers did not obstruct the picket, but did ask Gasanguseynov to write an explanatory statement discussing the aim of his protest.
A ‘superficial’ investigation
When the brothers were killed in August 2016, security forces claimed that both were militants, but their parents and fellow villagers insisted that the brothers were shepherds who were simply tending livestock in the mountains. At the time of the killing, they were walking home for dinner.
Firearms were allegedly placed on their bodies, and backpacks with ammunition were found next to them. Winter jackets had been put on the killed brothers, and in the pocket of one of the jackets, the police claim to have found an ammunition magazine. The brothers were barefoot, but army boots and their home slippers were lying nearby.
In March 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered the Russian authorities to pay Gasanguseynov compensation of €120,000 ($140,000). The ruling was related to the violation of the family’s rights and the lack of an effective investigation into the deaths of his sons.
The ECHR found it ‘unlikely’ that the brothers would have been in the forest in summer wearing winter jackets and baseball caps but barefoot, while also carrying an automatic rifle each, a backpack and two pairs of shoes. The number of wounds on their bodies did not match the number of bullet holes in the clothing.
These circumstances, according to the ECHR, indicate that the brothers were most likely killed under different circumstances and that evidence of their involvement in illegal armed groups was fabricated at the site where their bodies were found.
In 2019, then-Daghestani head Vladimir Vasilyev, said that the Gasanguseynov brothers died as a result of a ‘tragic mistake’ and not premeditated murder.
The following year, newly-elected Daghestani Head Sergei Melikov met with Gasanguseynov and his wife Patimat. He expressed his condolences, offered financial assistance, expressed his desire to personally visit the Gasanguseynov family in their home village, and also promised to help establish a charitable foundation named after the killed brothers.
Only in June 2021 did the Soviet District Court of Makhachkala uphold Gasanguseynov’s complaint against the investigator’s refusal to open a criminal case against the former police chief of the Shamil district, who in the operational report stated that the brothers were militants.
OC Media
