Dagestani police colonel sentenced to life in prison, in connection with Islamic terrorist attack that killed 41

A military court in Moscow has sentenced a high-ranking police official from Kizlyar, Dagestan, to life in prison.

Colonel Gazi Isayev, former head of Kizlyar District Police Department (“ROVD”), was tried in connection with the terrorist acts carried out by suicide bombers in the Moscow subway, back in 2010. The court has stripped Isayev of his rank.

According to the prosecution, the former official had been a member of Caucasus Islamic Emirate, a jihadist organization also active in parts of Syria. Isayev allegedly transported one of the suicide bombers to the Kizlyar bus station before she traveled from there to Moscow.

Isayev’s defense denied his guilt, presenting the court with an affidavit that Isayev had been at a hospital on the same day when he was supposed to have transported the would-be terrorist, and could not have driven her in his car.

The media have pointed out that the case against Isayev rests on hearsay — that is, the testimonies of already convicted terrorist combatants, who didn’t even claim to know the defendant personally, and said they’d heard about his criminal activities from others.

On March 29, 2010, 41 people were killed and 88 injured by explosions at two central Moscow subway stations, Lubyanka and Park Kultury. Later, Caucasus Islamic Emirate’s leader Doku Umarov took credit for the attack.