Owner of Ingushetia.ru Magomed Yevloev killed

Mr Yevloev was killed today after being detained at the Ingushetia Magas Airport. According to the website he owned, http://ingushetiya.ru/ Yevloev  was taken away from the runway near the plane by law enforcement officers.  The head of the organizing committee for the Ingushetia Nationwide Political Rally Magomed Khazbiyev told the radio station Echo Moskvy that Yevloev had travelled on the same plane as the President of Ingushetia. After the latter was met by a cortege, a row of cars with the Minister of Internal Affairs drove up to the plane and took Yevloev away.

Khazbiyev says that when detaining him, guns were used with warning shots at the legs. After the detention, the row of cars separated into six parts and it was not therefore possible to say with any certainty where they took the owner of http://ingushetiya.ru/  A number of media outlets reported that Yevloev was only injured, however it is known definitely that he was killed. 

By this evening, the Russian media were reporting that the Prosecutor has initiated a criminal investigation under the article for causing death through carelessness. According to RIA Novosti, the Ministry of Internal Affairs are claiming that Yevloev tried to grab a rifle from one of the police officers and was shot in the head.  Another story suggests that shots rang out in the car he was travelling in.  He was supposedly being taken to be interrogated regarding an explosion in Nazran. It is not clear why a need was seen to question Mr Yevloev.

Echo Moskvy reports that Yevloev had received threats and those working on the website he owned believe that he was deliberately killed.

The editorial office of the website says that the wounded man was found by relatives who had come to meet him. They took him to hospital where he died on the operating table.

In July this year a Russian court closed the website “ “for spreading extremist material”.  The prosecutor’s office had sought the closure of the site in connection with the publication of an interview with the leader of the Ingush opposition Mysa Keligov which had previously been found extremist by the court.  The ruling was appealed, but had recently been upheld by the Moscow City Court.  The Chief Editor of the site has since asked for political asylum in the West.