Witnesses in Usmanov’s case refute investigators’ version

Abdurakhman Usmanov, accused for involvement in the IS, was not a supporter of radical Islam; and defence witnesses saw him in Turkey when, according to investigators, he was in Syria.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that the case of Abdurakhman Usmanov, a resident of Dagestan, is considered by the North-Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don. According to investigators, in summer of 2014 he came to Syria and joined a terrorist training centre of the "Islamic State" (IS) (banned in Russia, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"), and up to October 2015, he guarded militants’ positions and gathered money for them.

All the three witnesses – an entrepreneur Satinat Gazimagomedova; Khadizhat Gazimagomedova, the mother of Ali Gaziev; and Denis Kopytov, an acquaintance of the defendant – have stated that Usmanov was not a supporter of radical Islam and had not raised the topic of war in Syria. Also, they know nothing about that he ever went there.

The advocate Vladimir Gladkov has noted that the prosecution’s version is based only on the defendant’s own confessions, which he has rejected, and on testimonies of "earlier convicted IS supporters, who had allegedly seen him in Syria."

In the opinion of Alexei Malashenko, an expert of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, so far, the people, who have returned to Russia from Syria, are of no direct threat. Nevertheless, according to his version, they may be hazardous, should the social situation in Russia aggravate.

In Northern Caucasus, the potential for recruiting people to the "Islamic State" is very limited, said Igor Dobaev, a Professor at the Southern Federal University (SFU).

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.