- Id
- 317
- Date
- 11/08/2009
- First
- Malik
- Surname
- AKHMEDILOV
- Sex/Age
- M, 33
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- ?J
- Place
- near home
- Job
- chief editor
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- North Caucasus
- Street, Town, Region
- Makhachkala, Dagestan
- Freelance
- No
- Local/National
- local, Khakikat weekly
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- shot
- Legal Qualification
- 105 (murder)
- Impunity
- investigation
The deputy chief editor of the Khakikat newspaper, and chief editor of the Sogratl monthly, Abdulmalik Akhmedilov was shot on Tuesday 11 August at approximately 1 pm in Makhachkala, Dagestan, as he left home.
He died on the spot. Eyewitnesses say that he was shot by unidentified assailants who got out of a car with tinted windows and no number plates. They had seen this vehicle near the journalist’s house for several days before the attack. Akhmedilov was 33, and certain acquaintances described him as a calm person, and his articles as not greatly controversial or critical in content. His colleague at Khakikat, Zulfira Gadjieva, was of a different view: in the newspaper Akhmedilov sharply criticized federal forces and local law enforcement, she told CPJ, for suppressing religious and political dissent under the guise of an "anti-extremism" campaign.
Three interpretations of the killing are now being investigated, said the senior aide to the head of the Investigative Committee for Dagestan Nizami Radjabov: personal enmity; debts and similar obligations; Akhmedilov’s professional activities as a journalist.
There may also be political motives for the killing. In an interview with a Radio Liberty correspondent the chief editor of Khakikat, the chairman of the Dagestan Union of Journalists Ali Kamalov said: “I think this was not an everyday crime but politically motivated. However, as yet it is unknown what the connection might be ... Akhmedilov wrote the editorials for the newspaper and proved a very balanced, thoughtful observer. His contributions concerned education, morality and culture ...” Kamalov added: “Over the last ten years ten journalists have been killed in Dagestan. This is the eleventh such murder ... Not one killing has yet been solved.”
A statement issued by the Dagestan Union of Journalists immediately after Akhmedilov’s death noted that he had contributed to the Khakikat (Truth) newspaper for many years — as a schoolboy and student when studying foreign languages at the University of Dagestan, joining the staff after conscription in the Russian army. His articles made a “notable contribution in the creation and strengthening of the institutions of civil society” and opposed “extremism, ethnic and religious intolerance, and corruption”.
Khakikat is a weekly newspaper published in Avar, one of the principal languages in multi-ethnic Dagestan, and distributed and read throughout the republic. Sogratl is a political monthly also published in the Avar language.