24 April 2009, 21:00
Defendant in Politkovskaya's case to be interrogated in a new case
Sergey Hadzhikurbanov, a former Moscow's RUBOP (Department to Fight Organized Crime) agent and acquitted figurant in the murder case of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, can be interrogated under another criminal case, this time under suspicion of forging money.
Back on April 3, the Tver Court of Moscow sanctioned the arrest of Sergey Hadzhikurbanov, and he was detained on April 2 in Moscow on suspicion in extortion. He was accused of extorting 350,000 US dollars from Dmitri Pavlyuchenkov, the main witness in Politkovskaya's murder case. Sergey Hadzhikurbanov asserts that his arrest was an act of vengeance by inspectors of the Prosecutor's Office for his acquittal in Politkovskaya's murder case.
A source from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) said today that the investigation suspects that Hadzhikurbanov could also be a member of the largest grouping of counterfeiters, who spent their "revenues" to fund Chechen militants.
According to the investigation, the name of Hadzhikurbanov appeared in the case about production and dissemination in the Russian market of millions of counterfeit roubles and dollars. According to the MIA, the business of making forged banknotes was organized by Ullubiy Akavov, a relative of one of Dagestan leaders and an assistant of a State Duma deputy, who in 2005 bought two cliches from engravers: of 1000-rouble and 100-dollar banknotes. The printing equipment was deployed in the Dagestan village of Kyzyl-Yurt, as the "Rosbalt" reports.
