MOSCOW, June 4 (RIA Novosti) - The mayor of the capital of Russia’s restive Dagestan region has been formally charged in the murder of a local investigator, the Chief Investigative Directorate of Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Tuesday.
The investigation believes Said Amirov, mayor of the city of Makhachkala in the Russian North Caucasus, was the mastermind behind the December 2011 killing of investigator Arsen Gadzhibekov in the Dagestan city of Kaspiysk, the committee said in a statement on its website.
Amirov was detained on June 1 and taken to Moscow, where a judge ordered him placed into pretrial custody. He has denounced the case against him as politically motivated, his lawyer said Monday.
Amirov, a long-serving member of the ruling United Russia party, won the title of Russia’s best mayor at a contest in late April.
Gadzhibekov, chief of the investigation department in Makhachkala's Sovetsky District, was shot dead near his home as he was getting out of his car. He had worked on a number of crimes, including the 2010 terror attack in Kizlyar that killed 10 and injured 270.
