Kardashov's mother expressed distrust of the Chechen court.

The injured party disagrees with the charges brought against Chechen security officials Aziev and Yusupov in the case of Alexei Kardashov, the manager of a pharmacy in Khasavyurt. The mother of the murdered Kardashov called the trial in Chechnya a "spectacle" and expressed confidence that it will not have an acceptable outcome.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot," on February 24, the Gudermes Court began hearing the criminal case against former drug enforcement officers Kalogi Aziev and Alikhan Yusupov. They are accused of illegally transporting Alexei Kardashov from Dagestan to Chechnya, personally searching him, and inspecting his vehicle in the fall of 2017. Both have pleaded guilty. They face up to four years in prison, but they failed to appear for their first court hearing.

Defendants Yusupov and Aziev attended the court hearing for the Kardashov kidnapping case on March 12, the Team Against Torture* told the Caucasian Knot.

"They came, and the court established their identities. Then, during the preliminary hearing, the court asked if there were any motions. The lawyers filed a motion to return the case to the prosecutor due to errors made during the preliminary investigation. The court retired to deliberation, returned about an hour later, and denied the motion. That's all; the trial was adjourned until 11 a.m. on March 31," a representative of the Committee on Torture* said.

Alexei Kardashov's mother, Tsilya Yakubova, stated that there has been no progress in the search for her son's body. "There's nothing there. It's just a nightmare. They're putting on their show, just like before, and nothing will happen, I know it," she said.

She also expressed outrage at the charges themselves and the trial's location. "The charges against us don't satisfy us, and of course, the outcome of the trial can't be positive. As long as this is in Chechnya, this is what it will be. The lawyers are working, but it's useless. And every new mention (of my son's fate) hurts me," Yakubova lamented.

Alexei Kardashov, who owned a pharmacy in Khasavyurt, left home on September 14, 2017, and never returned. His body has still not been found. Investigators believe that Rosgvardia officers Bekkhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Doukaev took Kardashov to Chechnya and left him with Said-Magomed Omarov, who killed Kardashov during an argument. The prosecution of Abdurashidov and Doukaev was based on Omarov's testimony during the investigation in Dagestan. However, after the case was transferred to Chechnya, he signed a confession.

In the summer of 2023, the Gudermes City Court of Chechnya found former Rosgvardia officers Bekkhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Doukaev guilty of illegally detaining pharmacy manager Alexei Kardashov. They were sentenced to two years' probation for abuse of office. This sentence was overturned on appeal, and in June 2024, the Sheikh Mansurovsky Court dismissed the case against Abdurashidov and Doukaev due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution.

The Omarov case was separated from the security forces' case in order to conceal the true circumstances of Kardashov's murder, human rights activist Dmitry Piskunov stated in 2020. "Most of the evidence of the guilt of the Chechen security forces was simply transferred to a separate criminal case against Omarov so that we could not refer to this evidence in the trial... It has reached the point of ridiculousness: Omarov's case now contains 20 volumes, while the case of the security forces only contains six. Yes, Omarov was involved in a crime, but not the one for which he was found guilty by the court," Piskunov told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

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