Austrian law enforcement agencies are investigating an attempt to kill the blogger Said-Khussein Magomadov, who criticizes the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The Vienna prosecutor’s office and the police confirmed the information about the investigation, writes The standard.
According to Magomadov, one of the alleged accomplices in the assassination attempt was detained in the Austrian capital. But the murder itself was to take place in Bregenz in the federal state of Vorarlberg.
“They (the police) told me that they had been following this man for several months and eavesdropping on his every word. They found out that he was planning to plant a bomb under my car in order to kill me, “- said Magomadov, whom quotes “Caucasian Knot”.
He recalled that last year he made public the names of those involved in the murder in Austria of another critic of Kadyrov – the Chechen refugee Mamikhan Umarov (Anzor from Vienna). After that incident, Magomadov’s relatives living in Chechnya received threats. “They threatened [родственникам] cut the throat of my four-year-old niece if I don’t publish an apology, ”Magomadov said.
After the blogger’s refusal to ask for forgiveness in October 2020, his relatives living in Chechnya, recorded video message in which Magomadov was cursed. On footage, they took turns insulting him, demanding that he stop criticizing the authorities of the republic. “We gathered today because of our nephew, because of the filthy creature who left [за границу]… If he were a man, he would not be doing this, he would not write this about women and others … He left, sat down there and doomed us to this grief, “a relative of a Chechen who left for Austria, who introduced himself as Khoza Magomadov, said into the camera lens. …
how reported sources “Kavkaz.Realii”, the arrest of suspects in the attempt on Magomadov took place in June. One of them is a native of Chechnya, who maintained contacts with Shaa Turlaev, nicknamed Seda, the former head of the security of the President of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov. Turlaev is considered one of Kadyrov’s close associates responsible for planning political assassinations in Europe. In particular, the Austrian police included Turlaev in the circle of suspects in the murder of Kadyrov’s former bodyguard Umar Israilov. He was shot dead by Chechens on a Vienna street in January 2009.
Said-Khusein Magomadov came to Austria in 2003 as a refugee.
In 2020, two political opponents of Ramzan Kadyrov abroad were killed abroad – blogger Mamikhan Umarov, who lived in Austria, known as Anzor from Vienna, and Imran Aliyev, nicknamed Mansur Stary, who was in France. In addition, Sweden had attempted against the Chechen opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov.
In July 2020, the brother of blogger Minkail Malizayev, who lives in Europe, apologized for his relative publicly criticizing Kadyrov. His video message appeared shortly after the murder in Vienna of the political emigrant Mamikhan Umarov, who also spoke negatively about the Chechen authorities.