The Moscow City Court has cancelled the acquittal of a son of the former prime minister of the North Caucasus region of Daghestan in the high-profile 2018 death of a Moscow student that sparked an outcry in her native Kazakhstan.
Murtuzali Medzhidov, a son of the former prime minister of Daghestan, Mukhtar Medzhidov, was acquitted in June of causing the death of 21-year-old Tomiris Baisafa, his Kazakh girlfriend.
Medzhidov, also a student, was arrested after a witness said that he beat the girl and forced her out of a fourth-floor window in a building at the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO).
Medzhidov’s lawyer, Shamil Yandarbaev, said on October 28 that his client’s acquittal has been annulled, and that he will be retried.
Baisafa’s death caused a public outcry in Kazakhstan. The country’s ombudswoman, Elvira Azimova, asked her Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova to take the case under her personal supervision.
In September, a lawyer for Baisafa’s family, Yevgeny Yavorsky, said he will demand a new trial for Medzhidov, but this time in Kazakhstan.
Murtuzali Medzhidov’s father, Mukhtar Medzhidov led Daghestan’s government from January to July in 2013. Before that he served as Daghestan’s deputy prime minister and a lawmaker.
