ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia – More than a decade after prominent journalist Khadzhimurad Kamalov was gunned down in Russia's North Caucasus region of Daghestan, prosecutors have asked a court to sentence three of the alleged perpetrators to life in prison.
Prosecutors asked a court in the southwestern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on June 22 to hand life sentences to former Daghestani Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Isayev and two other men, Murad Shuaibov and Magomed Khazamov.
Prosecutors seek 15 years in prison for a fourth defendant, Magomed Abigasanov, who made a deal with investigators.
Prosecutors laid out their sentencing requests in the high-profile trial, which started in November 2020 and has yet to return verdicts.
Kamalov, the editor and publisher of weekly newspaper Chernovik, was shot dead in mid-December 2011 outside the newspaper's office in Makhachkala, capital of Daghestan.
Kamalov's newspaper was known for extensive reporting on police abuses in the fight against an Islamist insurgency that originated in neighboring Chechnya and spread across the North Caucasus.
Kamalov's brother, Magdi Kamalov, said after prosecutors demanded the harsh sentences on June 22 that he is confident that more people were involved in the murder of his brother, adding that investigators were unable to find all people directly involved in the crime.
Kamalov's murder was harshly criticized by international and domestic human rights organizations.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said at the time that Kamalov's murder "sends a chilling message to journalists" seeking to uncover official corruption and called on Russian authorities to conduct a "thorough, transparent, and independent" investigation into the journalist's killing and bring the perpetrators to justice promptly.