A man was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Moscow court that found him guilty of aiding suicide bombers who had planned a terror attack in the Moscow in 2010. Timur Akubekov was sentenced to 10 years in a high-security prison by the Moscow City Court. Akubekov will be on probation for two years once he serves his term. No evidence was examined in the trial and no witnesses questioned because Akubekov had signed a pre-trial cooperation agreement with investigators.
Ibragimkhalil Daudov set up a gang in Dagestan in October 2010 to plot a series of terror attacks in Moscow and Dagestan, including an explosion on Moscow's Red Square Dec 31, 2010.
Akubekov was ordered to ensure that female suicide bombers Zeinap Suyunova and Daudov's wife Zavzhat Daudova be brought to Red Square, show them where to blow themselves up and control the attack, according to investigators. Akubekov was then supposed to inform another gang member, Shamil Paizulayev, when the attacks were carried out.
Suyunova was to have detonated a homemade explosive device on her body in the crowd celebrating New Year's Eve in Red Square. Daudova was to have waited for the authorities to arrive and blown herself up near them.
Daudova died while trying to fasten an explosive device on her body in a hotel. Suyunova failed to perpetrate her terror attack as well. She lost the switch from her homemade explosive device, which rendered it unable to operate.
Having also lost her mobile phone and without knowing where in Moscow Red Square was, she failed to communicate with her fellow plotters to receive instructions from gang leader Daudov. She decided to escape and took a bus to Kizlyar in Dagestan.
Suyunova was brought to Moscow in January 2011. She was found guilty of banditry, an attempt to perpetrate a terrorist act, and illegal manufacture and possession of explosive devices.
Akubekov was detained in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, in the same month.
A court earlier in May sentenced Suyunova to 10 years in a medium-security prison.
Kommersant business daily said Suyunova got involved in terrorism against her will. She said she made friends with a group of Wahhabis while studying pharmacology in the Stavropol region, left home and married a man who turned out to be a
| There but for the grace of Allan ... |