The Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested five members of the group, which, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, has committed more than 30 contract killings, robberies and kidnappings since 1998. This was reported by a Mediazona correspondent.
For several episodes of the article on murder, two current employees of the Russian Guard were sent to the pre-trial detention center: the chief of staff of the SOBR «Lynx» Alexey Alpatov and the senior detective officer for especially important cases of the methodological department of the same special unit Sergei Volostnykh (part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code ).
According to BFM, the investigator demanded that Alpatov be taken into custody because the accused has “administrative resources to threaten witnesses.” The prosecutor's office supported the motion. Alpatov himself called the accusations brought against him a “slander.”
“I am not involved in the murder, I am loyal to my oath and my homeland, which I have repeatedly proven in the Northern Military District zone, for which I was awarded two Orders of Courage and a medal for courage,” the National Guard member said in court. Sergei Volostnykh also did not admit guilt during the hearing.
In addition, the court sent under arrest the mobilized Dmitry Kushakov from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the commander of a motorized rifle platoon of military unit No. 29297, the Mediazona correspondent reported. In court, a serviceman born in 1974 said that since June 13 he had been receiving treatment in Moscow after being wounded in the shoulder. He has been at war in Ukraine since December 2022.
The judge practically did not allow the appointed lawyer to communicate with Kushakov, giving him one minute to do so. According to the defense attorney, he received an assignment to the case within two hours and since then has not been able to find out anything about the accused. The lawyer asked the judge to “respect the principle of equality” and postpone the trial for 72 hours.
Today, two more defendants in the case were arrested — Sergei Anisimov and Andrei Yakhnev. All of them will remain in pre-trial detention until February 6.
Yesterday, December 6, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the detention of 15 members of the group, among whom are former and current employees of internal affairs bodies, including the State Traffic Inspectorate.
The department named the leaders of the group as a former serviceman and SOBR officer who died in a car accident in 2006. According to police, the gang specialized in contract crimes using firearms and explosive devices.
The detainees are also accused of the murder of an adviser to the Minister of Railways in 2002 in Odintsovo near Moscow, the kidnapping and murder in the same year of the owner of a commercial company in Moscow, the attempted murder of a consultant to the State Duma apparatus in 2003, the murder of several criminal authorities in the same years, as well as the kidnapping and murder of the owner of the Moscow Krasnogvardeisky market and his partner in 2004.
The police claim that one of the leaders of the group lived in Ukraine for a long time — he has a view of residence in this country. According to Irina Volk, a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he regularly came to Russia “to coordinate the activities of the group and lead ordinary participants,” and transferred the money to Ukraine.