MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti) – Several senior police officers, including the former head of the Makhachkala police department, are suspected of involvement in high-profile crimes in Dagestan, spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said Monday.
The committee has launched seven criminal cases over a series of attacks on police officials and prosecutors in Dagestan in 2007-2012.
"A number of suspects have been arrested,” Markin said. “Among them is Kizlyar prosecutor's aide Magomed Abdulgalimov, the commander of a traffic police unit in the town of Kaspiisk Gadzhi Dzhamalutdinov and an investigator at the Makhachkala police department Magomed Akhmedov.”
Markin also said that the former head of the Makhachkala police department, Col. Raip Ashikov, may have been involved in the crimes.
According to investigators, Ashikov took a three-day leave on March 22 and disappeared.
He has been relieved of his duties and Dagestan’s Interior Ministry has issued orders for his detention and questioning, Markin said.
Dagestan, one of the most troubled regions in Russia’s restive North Caucasus, got a new leader in January in what experts believe to have been a Kremlin-backed reshuffle aimed at fighting widespread corruption in the republic.
