Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] The court in the case of Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, Abubakar Rizvanov and Kemal Tambiev agreed to add to the materials the testimony of the preacher Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, in which he refuted the investigators' version of Rizvanov's involvement in the financing of terrorism.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 11, it became known that Abubakar Rizvanov, the head of the Ansar Foundation, who was accused of financing terrorism along with Abdulmumin Gadzhiev and Kemal Tambiev, said during interrogation that he became a co-founder of the foundation at the suggestion of preacher Israil Akhmednabiev (Abu Umar Sasitlinsky ), but he only formally participated in the activities of Ansar.
Earlier, on October 20, a secret witness under the pseudonym "Dzhigurda" was interrogated in court. The testimony given to the court by "Dzhigurda" contradicts his written testimony at the stage of pre-trial investigation, Abubakar Rizvanov drew attention. The witness himself explained the contradictions by the fact that he no longer remembers the details.
ABUBAKAR RIZVANOV CLARIFIED HIS PRE-TRIAL TESTIMONY
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don finished interrogating the defendants and admitted the testimony of Abu Umar Sasitlinsky to the case. The preacher, who left Russia a long time ago, denied all accusations, the Memorial Human Rights Center reported in his telegram channel Full HRC 2.0.
The meeting took place on December 8, at which the testimony of Abubakar Rizvanov, which he gave to the investigation in 2019 and 2020, was read out. “A total of four protocols were read out. The testimony from them generally coincided with those given by Rizvanov in court at previous hearings. They spoke about Rizvanov’s relationship with Israil Akhmednabiev and about the participation of the defendant in the Ansar charity foundation.
Rizvanov did not object to the announcement of the protocols “On the contrary, he believes that they reinforce the position of the defense,” the publication says.
The process in the case of Gadzhiev, Rizvanov and Tambiev is also covered by the publication "Chernovik", whose journalist is Gadzhiev. As of 13.50 Moscow time on December 11, there are no publications on the website and in the telegram channel of the publication about the meeting held on December 8.
In particular, the protocol of Rizvanov’s interrogation dated June 14, 2019 stated that after the registration of the Ansar Foundation in 2013, Israil Akhmednabiev published the bank card numbers of Karim Aliyev (Rizvanov’s brother) to collect donations, and in a few months about 100,000 dollars with which Akhmednabiev went to Syria on a charitable mission.
| That’s not chicken feed... or perhaps it is, for an army of chickens... |
After the announcement of the protocol, Abubakar Rizvanov partially agreed with the testimony, but clarified that he gave the testimony immediately after the arrest and, due to a stressful state, erroneously reported some details during interrogation. In particular, according to him, Akhmednabiev collected this money even before the foundation was created, and thus, neither Abubakar Rizvanov nor Karim Aliyev had anything to do with their collection.
The protocol also stated that Rizvanov's card regularly received funds from the fund - approximately 300-400 thousand rubles a month. Commenting on these testimonies, Rizvanov stated in court that he did not receive the fund's money on a permanent basis on his card: there were only a few such transfers when Karim Aliyev's card exceeded the monthly cash withdrawal limit. Rizvanov stressed that he himself did not take any part in the collection of money, and Akhmednabiyev disposed of all the incoming amounts.
The editor of the Chernovik newspaper Abdulmumin Hajiyev, the head of the Ansar charity fund Abubakar Rizvanov and Kemal Tambiev have been accused of financing terrorism. Investigators believe that they collected 68 million rubles and 200 thousand dollars for the terrorists under the pretext of building mosques and helping poor Muslims.
The investigation connects the defendants with Israil Akhmednabiev, a Dagestan preacher and founder of the Mukhadzhirun Islamic Foundation,
| ... Mukhadzhirun apparently means ‘Living Heart’, for what that’s worth. Apparently the foundation and Mr. Akhmednabiev have been connected to fundraising for ISIS... |
known as Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, who has been put on the wanted list in a terrorism case. The defendants pleaded not guilty.
After the interrogation of Abubakar Rizvanov, the court completed the interrogation of the defendants, and Rizvanov filed a motion with a request to investigate and attach to the case file the protocol of the lawyer's interrogation of Israil Akhmednabiev. "The preacher was questioned by lawyer Umalat Saygitov in Istanbul with the participation of a Turkish lawyer. A video of this question was also attached," Memorial reported.
THE COURT ATTACHED TO THE CASE THE TESTIMONY OF THE PREACHER IN FAVOR OF RIZVANOV
According to the protocol, Akhmednabiyev denied accusations of participation in terrorist organizations. He said that he received offers to join the Islamic State*, but when his representatives learned that Akhmednabiyev discouraged people from going to Syria and participating in IS*, he began to receive death threats from members of the organization. Akhmednabiyev stressed that he is against this terrorist organization, and his position corresponds to the position of Sunni scholars.
Akhmednabiev said in a survey that he was engaged exclusively in charitable activities, and in seven years he managed to build 8,500 wells, 77 schools and 210 mosques. According to him, the founder of all the funds affiliated with him was himself, and his Living Heart fund (the former Mukhadzhirun fund) received money, including from the head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and other famous people .
Israil Akhmednabiev also rejected the version that Abubakar Rizvanov participated in banned organizations.
| “Pshaw! And again, sir, I say to you pshaw! Perish the thought” |
According to the preacher, the defendant did not have any authority in the fund, and he had nothing to do with the construction of the hafiz school. After Ansar was liquidated, relations between Akhmednabiev and Rizvanov ceased.
Abu Umar Sasitlinsky's telegram channel, which has 13,200 subscribers, regularly publishes information about his charitable activities, such as building wells for African Muslims. At the same time, back in 2015, the preacher categorically denied the assumptions about his involvement in the activities of banned organizations.
"They started accusing me of recruiting someone after it became known that several of my fellow villagers, three of whom are my relatives, left for Syria, allegedly under my influence. Of course, this is absurd and slanderous," - quoted from an interview with a preacher on December 13, 2015, the Voice of Islam website.
In the same interview, Israil Akhmednabiev emphasized that he went to Syria exclusively "with humanitarian aid." "Hundreds and thousands of people with crippled destinies, which nobody cares. Seeing all this, we together created a fund whose goal from the very beginning to this day is to help these unfortunate people," he said.
The prosecutor in court objected to the fact that the protocol of the interrogation of Abu Umar Sasitlinsky was attached to the case file. In his opinion, this is not a procedural document, since the explanations were taken by a lawyer, moreover, outside of Russia, and the court cannot assess the contents of this document.
In turn, the defense explained that the lawyer was authorized to take explanations. The court agreed with the position of the defense and attached the interrogation protocol and its video recording to the case file. The next meeting is scheduled for January 10, 2023, Memorial reported.
Recall that on September 22, Abdulmumin Hajiyev stated in court that the version of the investigation about his cooperation with Abu Umar Sasitlinsky was unfounded. He explained that he only interacted with the preacher once when he was interviewing.
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