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Tatarstan court denies bail to suspected attacker of clerics

Both clerics are known in the republic as fighters against extremism

KAZAN, August 15 (Itar-Tass) — Tatarstan's Supreme Court denied bail to local resident Alexei Verezumsky, arrested on suspicion of involvement in the assassination attempt on the life of Tatarstan’s mufti and the murder of his deputy. The Supreme Court sent the case to the Yurtazinsky district court for new review, the Supreme Court's press service told Itar-Tass.

The car of Tatarstan's mufti, chairman of the republic’s Spiritual Directorate Ildus Faizov. He was injured in the explosion. An hour earlier, head of the DUM's education department Valiulla Yakupov, 48, was shot and killed in the entrance to his apartment house.

Both clerics are known in the republic as fighters against extremism. Criminal cases were opened over terrorism, murder and attempted murder on July 19. Seven persons, including Verezumsky, were arrested within the case. Two have been put on the wanted list.

The investigator said Verezumsky is unemployed. He embraced Islam. Law-enforcement agents detained him on July 21 and the Yurtazinsky district court sanctioned his arrest on July 23. A search at his apartment found a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition. Verezumsky asked to change the measure of restraint for him to recognizance, but the investigator said that the suspect, if at large, might put pressure on witnesses or obstruct the probe.

Among the persons arrested within the case is former imam of the mosque of the Vysokogorsky district Airat Shakirov, director general of the Shifa company Murat Kudakov, Uzbek citizen Abdunozim Ataboyev, chairman of the board of the Idel-Khadzhh company Rustem Gataullin, and resident of the Laishevsky district of Tatarstan Rustam Kashapov. Adherents of radical Islam Robert Valeyev and Rais Mingaleyev are on the wanted list.

Tatarstan's Modzhakheds, a previously unknown organization, has claimed responsibility for the crime. It announced itself in trailers on the Internet.