Andrei Vinogradov, head of the Kizlyar district administration in Dagestan, is not the first official to be abducted in this way. The republican authorities were totally unaware of what was happening two years ago when Said Amirov, mayor of Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala at the time, was suddenly arrested on murder charges.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged Vinogradov with organising contract killings and funding terrorism. But Vinogradov was not the main target of the operation – that was Sagid Murtazaliyev, a member of the republic’s legislative assembly and head of the republic’s branch of the state pension fund. Murtazaliyev is also leader of one of Dagestan’s most influential clans in the 1990s.
All Murtazaliyev’s homes around the republic were searched: evidently the special forces were unaware that, since appearing as a key witness at the trial of Said Amirov, who leads another clan, Murtazaliyev has chosen to live in Dubai.
