On December 27, the Moscow City Court read out the verdict of former member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation from Karachay-Cherkessia Rauf Arashukov and his father, ex-adviser of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Raul Arashukov. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment for organizing two murders, creating a criminal community and stealing gas.
The jury returned a guilty verdict back in September, but its deliberation and announcement of the verdict was postponed due to the illness of one of the defendants.
Senator Rauf Arashukov was detained in January 2019 during a meeting of the Federation Council. He was accused of organizing, on behalf of his father, the murder of Fral Shebzukhov, an adviser to the head of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, and Aslan Zhukov, an activist of the Adyghe-Khase social movement, who could have interfered with the criminal activities of the Gazprom top manager.
The Arashukovs were also found guilty of gas theft in the amount of 4.4 billion rubles. In addition to them, four more appeared before the court: the director of the branch of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz Stavropol LLC in the Mineralovodsky district Guzer Khashukaev, and. O. the head of the department of the RF Investigative Committee for the Karachay-Cherkess Republic Kazbek Bulatov, the ex-head of the center for countering extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic Timur Betuganov and the ex-investigator for particularly important cases of the investigative department for the Karachay-Cherkess Republic Andrey Filippov. They were charged with organizing a criminal community, murder, embezzlement, abuse of power, bribery and deliberately false denunciation. The case against another 14 accused was separated into separate proceedings.