The Istanbul Public Prosecution Office on Counter- Terrorism has sent the investigation files on the assassination of three Chechen asylum seekers in Istanbul in September 2011, to a district public prosecution office.

On September 16, 2011, three Chechen asylum seekers, Berg-Khazh Musaev (aka Emir Khamzat), Zaurbek Amriev and Rustam Altemirov, were assassinated in broad daylight in the district of Zeytinburnu within Istanbul, Turkey. After the incident, several Turkish media sources reported that at least 8 Russian agents were involved in the assassination, and two of them were identified as Nadim Ayupov and Alexandr Zharkov (Garkov). It had also been claimed that Turkish authorities asked Interpol to issue a “Red Notice” for these suspects.

Mr. Adem Ozcan, public prosecutor on counter-terrorism from the Istanbul Attorney General’s Office, has worked on this assassination for the last eight months. He returned the investigation file to the Bakirkoy District Public Prosecution Office, claiming that they weren’t able to find any “criminal group” and for this reason, they were convinced that the incident had nothing to do with any criminal groups and sent back the investigation file, pursuant to article 10 of the Law on Counter-Terrorism.

The Turkish prosecutor’s decision means that from now on, the district public prosecution office will continue the investigation as an ordinary murder. This approach leaves the Russian Federation and its intelligence services out of the investigation, in other words, Turkey overlaps the file and it will remain unsolved like many others. Even if they are able to arrest any of the suspects, they will consider them individuals and there will not be any request against the Russian authorities or their intelligence services.

Recall that, in addition to the news in Turkish mass media about the profiles of suspects and obtained evidence by the Turkish police, the English daily newspaper “The Telegraph” published a secret Russian document on “the authorization of the Russian secret service to ‘eliminate’ individuals living overseas who were judged to be enemies of the state and ordered the creation of special units to conduct such operations”. Also, the international media often mentions a group of Russian intelligence officers called the “Berlin group”. Furthermore, since 2008, 6 Chechen asylum seekers have been assassinated in Turkey and recently another one managed to survive with severe injuries after an assassination attempt, but so far, all of these incidents remain unsolved. In light of these facts, it is necessary to ask “why” and “how” the Turkish prosecutor is convinced that there is no organizational structure in the assassinations of these three Chechen asylum seekers.

*Text was written by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco