Policemen Targeted in Kabardino-Balkaria

Interfax reported on December 5 that a police captain was murdered in Kabardino-Balkaria. The incident took place in the village of Stary Cherek, in the republic’s Urvan district. An Urvan district law-enforcement source told the news agency that unidentified gunmen came to the home of the officer, who was a member of the district police department’s criminal investigation unit, knocked on his door and shot him. On December 4, unidentified gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire on a police post in the village of Khasanya, located in the suburbs of Nalchik. No policemen were hurt, and they returned fire on the attackers, who managed to escape into a wooded area. Kavkazky Uzel reported that a policeman was killed and two wounded in Khasanya during a shootout with unknown gunmen on November 19.

Meanwhile, the district court in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrus district sentenced two policemen, Murat Baichekuev and Mukhammed Mashezov, to three years in prison for abducting, beating and torturing two teenagers, Yusup Nakani and Ravil Nuraliev, from the village of Neitrino, in the republic’s Elbrus district in August 2006.