MOSCOW, October 25. (ITAR-TASS). — People who assisted in solving the murder of Yegor Shcherbakov, on suspicion of which Azerbaijani native Orkhan Zeinalov was detained, received the promised one million rubles ($31,551), press service of the Main Directorate of the Interior Ministry in Moscow told Itar-Tass on Friday.
“Today at Petrovka 38 (Moscow’s police directorate headquarters) Chief of Moscow Department of the Russian Ministry of Interior Anatoly Yakunin thanked the citizens who assisted Moscow police officers, and paid them the earlier promised cash award of 1 million rubles,” — police spokesperson said.
Overnight October 10 25-year-old Muscovite Yegor Shcherbakov was murdered in the metropolitan area of Western Biryulevo. In a conflict with an unidentified man he was stabbed with a knife in the heart and subsequently died. October 13, local residents of the area gathered for a rally and required to find and punish the killer. Their gathering turned into a riot in which 400 people were detained.
Investigation into the murder
Orkhan Zeinalov, a citizen of Azerbaijan, was suspected in the murder. He was detained October 15 in Kolomna near Moscow, was taken to Moscow and arrested until December 10. The defense appealed against the decision.
October 18, the suspect was formally charged with murder.
Zeinalov faces life in prison. During the first interrogation, he confessed that he stabbed Shcherbakov, on the night of October 10 in Vostryakovskiy passage. Later Zeinalov denied this testimony, and said that he was not at the crime scene. However, according to the investigator, a friend of the victim identified Zeinalov.
Azerbaijan’s reaction
Baku noted that during the arrest of Zeinalov there were irregularities that contradict the requirements of the Convention CIS member states “on legal assistance and legal relations in civil, family and criminal cases” and the European Convention on protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General Zakir Garalov asked his Russian counterpart Yury Chaika and Russia’s Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastrykin to provide an objective and fair investigation of the case.