The Bashkirian representation of the Committee Against Torture providing legal aid to the victims under this case has learnt that the case about the murder of Albert Mukhametzakirov, teacher of Russian and literature from Ufa, has gone to court. Police officer Vladislav Simukhin who shot the teacher in his own car is charged under p. 1 Art. 105 of the RF Criminal Code (murder, i.e. intended infliction of death to a person).

   The investigation has determined that Vladislav Simukhin, serving in the company of the extradepartmental security service under the Oktyabrsky Department of Internal Affairs in Bashkiria, received his service gun in the control room of the Oktyabrsky Department of Internal Affairs and, being intoxicated, decided not to go on duty, instead he took some more alcohol, wrote a farewell letter to his mother and went to Ufa taking his service gun with him.  Simukhin spent the whole night boozing with his friends. In the morning the drunk sergeant felt an urge to go back to Oktyabrsky. He went to the taxi parking, his service gun and police uniform were in his bag. It was a tragic coincidence that on that day Ufa teacher Mukhametzakirov was driving a taxi in order to earn some additional money. Simukhin got in his car, paid for the ride to the Dema district of Ufa, but later demanded that Mukhametzakirov should take him to Oktyabrsky or give the money back. They quarreled, Mukhametzakirov refused to take Simukhin to Oktyabrsky. The sergeant, being in a drunken haze, took his service gun out of the bag and shot the teacher in the head. He died immediately.   

   First, the Bashkirian police heads denied that their worker was involved in the murder, most likely, they simply did not want to wash dirty linen in public. Later, when Simukhin, who had fled, was detained in Nizhny Taguil and confessed to the murder, it became impossible for the Ministry of Internal Affairs to simulate innocence.  Following those events the head of the extradepartmental security service under the Oktyabrsky Department of Internal Affairs of Bashkiria, Rais Khramshin, and a number of other top officers of the Oktyabrsky Department of Internal Affair, Simukhin’s commanders, were promptly dismissed.    

   The Bashkirian representation of the Interregional Committee Against Torture is conducting a public investigation and intends to represent the victims’ interests in court.