Opposition Leader Killed in Russia's Republic of Ingushetia

Aushev's death is the latest of many killings in the North Caucasus region.

ByABC News
October 26, 2009, 9:59 AM

MOSCOW, Oct. 26, 2009 — -- A well-known opposition leader from Russia's southern republic of Ingushetia was gunned down Sunday morning while driving along the main road of a neighboring province. The killing is the latest such death in recent weeks of an activist critical of the government in the violent North Caucasus region.

Assailants sprayed the car driven by Maksharip Aushev with bullets, killing him and wounding a passenger on a highway in Kabardino-Balkaria.

Aushev was a wealthy businessman known as an outspoken critic of Ingushetia's previous president, Murat Zyazikov, and the security forces operating in the region that he criticized for being corrupt and acting with impunity. He had been repeatedly threatened and was imprisoned for several months for disturbing public order.

He supported the Kremlin-backed, corruption-fighting president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and quit his role as an opposition politician. But Aushev joined a national human rights council and continued to speak out against the brutality of state security forces.

Colleagues say that Aushev's killing is the latest in an effort to silence government critics and is particularly disheartening because of his good relations with Yevkurov and his efforts to draw attention to human rights abuses.

Aushev also still locked horns with Zyazikov's family, a powerful clan in the region, friend and activist Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow said.

"It's a very sad illustration of how Yevkurov is failing to provide security in Ingushetia and failing to stop the security services from acting with impunity," Lokshina said.

The murder comes on the heels of the killings of prominent human rights activist Natalia Estemirova in Ingushetia in July and Zarema Sadulayeva in August.

Sadulayeva worked to rehabilitate children in war-torn Chechnya and was kidnapped and killed with her husband. After Estemirova was killed, her organization, Memorial, shut down its office and has yet to reopen.