The jury found guilty of the accused in the attempt on the life of the singer Abraham Russo

Although the deceased killer was previously called an alcoholic, with whom “Ismailov will not contact”

The jury has delivered a verdict against three men accused of the attempt on the life of the famous singer Abraham Russo, committed 16 years ago. All three were found guilty. According to investigators, the well-known businessman Telman Ismailov, who is hiding abroad, ordered the attack. The defendants, Vitaly Dzhura and Aleksey Tryasnikov, pleaded not guilty. The third, Mikhail Demkin, whom the investigation considers the perpetrator, died before the trial.

As the public prosecutor earlier stated in the debate, according to the investigation, businessman Ismailov, for a number of reasons, decided to physically eliminate the Russian singer of Syrian origin Avraam Russo. “MK” has already written about possible motives – Ismailov was angry that the artist did not want to cooperate with him.

According to the investigators, Ismailov gave Tarkhan Eldukaev, the head of his bodyguards, a delicate assignment – “to find people for this (to eliminate Rousseau – ed. note).” Eldukaev contacted “unidentified persons”, who were supposed to fulfill the order. However, they decided not to personally dirty their hands, but to use amateurs and, apparently, also save money along the way (get a decent amount of money from customers, keep most of it for themselves, and pay only a very modest fee to the killers). So, according to the prosecution, three acquaintances were connected to the “case” – Mikhail Demkin, Vitaly Dzhura and Alexei Tryasnikov. Demkin, according to the prosecutor, illegally acquired an AKS-74U assault rifle with two magazines and 52 rounds of 5.45 caliber and eventually became the direct perpetrator of the assassination. Dzhura was engaged in spying on Rousseau and his routes, informing the rest of the group and buying “left” SIM cards, and Tryasnikov played the role of a cab driver.

As a result, the attempt took place on the night of August 19, 2006 on Burdenko Street near the singer’s house. In front of his car, in which Russo himself and security guard Roman Fetisov were, an unknown person ran out and fired six times from a long-barreled weapon – the singer received 4 wounds in the leg, but survived. The killer, however, considered that Russo was no longer a tenant, and fled, throwing a machine gun with the remaining ammunition along the way and set off on the run. Later, experts will discover the weapon itself and two stores linked together with adhesive tape, on which they will later find biological traces that belonged to Mikhail Demkin.

The defense also presented its arguments. Lawyers stressed that in different examinations, the adhesive tape with which the magazines were fastened to the machine was called either adhesive tape or electrical tape, the number of one of the examinations differed in different documents (although the expert explained that this was just a technical error). The defenders also mentioned that traces of “at least two persons” were found on the adhesive tape – that is, according to the lawyers, “there may be five, ten, or twenty of these persons,” which means a large number of suspects. And Kazyakin, one of the brothers-lawyers of Tryasnikov, cited Rousseau himself as an argument to the judge. He spoke about the singer’s claims that he could not forget the face of the shooter. And when, at one of the meetings, Kazyakin turned to the artist with the question “Can you identify the one who shot at you in this hall,” Rousseau answered him “The shooter looked like you!”, The defender emotionally told the judge.

The defendants also made the final statement. Both declared their innocence, and Tryasnikov even stated that “some kind of nonsense is being hung on him.” The prosecutor appealed to the court with a protest “What is the term” hanging “, your honor?”. The judge granted the protest, noting “Doesn’t ‘nonsense’ bother you?” However, Tryasnikov even earlier, at one of the meetings, claimed that he was allegedly forced to give his testimony to the detective under pressure. And the killer, who died before the trial, was literally humiliated during a break, when the lawyer of one of the accused said in a private conversation: “Dyomkin is an alcoholic, previously convicted. Is Ismailov going to contact such a person?”

The jury had to answer 12 questions, which can be conditionally divided into three groups – whether there was a crime, whether the defendants are guilty and whether they deserve leniency.