Religious blogger and vigilante Khadzhimurad Khanov was sent to a pre-trial detention center in Dagestan, said the head of the POC of Dagestan Shamil Khadulaev. He is accused of illegal possession of weapons (Part 3 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code).
Khanov fled from Dagestan to Germany in 2002 and lived there as an illegal immigrant under the name Murad Ataev. As Meduza wrote, in the first months in Germany he “abused drugs and gambling,” but then became a Russian-speaking imam in Berlin and began blogging with Islamic State sermons.
In 2016, a German court found Khanov guilty of recruiting fighters to the Islamic State and, taking into account his cooperation with the investigation, sentenced the imam to two and a half years in prison.
After serving his sentence, Khanov returned to Russia and started a blog called «Gadzhimurad Shamilovich» and introduced himself as a «popularizer of moral and ethical values.» His Instagram account mostly contained misogynistic posts about «cave Dagfem women,» «hijab apostates,» and «covered hype-eaters.» In 2021-2023, Khanov also worked as an assistant to a member of the Dagestani parliament.
Khanov was linked to the kidnapping and prosecution in Dagestan of amateur gay porn blogger Matvey Volodin USSRboy in May 2024. Human rights activists claimed that Volodin, who had come to Makhachkala, was kidnapped by Dagestani police officers, who then met men on his behalf and blackmailed them. Volodin himself is currently in jail.
Khanov was one of the first to write about the detention of USSRboy, presenting it as a «raid to liquidate a gay den» and a fight against the «expansion of the rainbow.» He also said that he hacked Volodin's closed Telegram channels and copied data from his phone.
At the end of June, shortly after the terrorist attack in Dagestan, Khanov began to criticize the Alter-Med medical center in Khasavyurt. According to him, the endocrinologist working there refused to see the visitor because she was wearing a niqab. Doctor Evgenia Makeeva made a video with an apology, in which she denied the claims and said that “the patient was in no way denied help, but on the contrary, emergency assistance was offered.”
Because of this conflict, the head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, dedicated the post to Khanov. He called the blogger a “pseudo-social activist with a vague biography” and a “pseudo-leader of public opinion.” “Who gave the right to threaten and stigmatize a person who, by the way, has nothing against Muslims?” — Melikov wrote on June 30, without addressing the blogger by name.
On the morning of July 1, Khanov posted a video that they came to search his place. It is unknown what exactly he is accused of.
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