Azerbaijani suspect pleads not guilty to Biryulyovo murder

Moscow’s Presnensky court has ruled taking into custody of Azerbaijani national Orkhan Zeinalov suspected of killing ethnic Russian Yegor Shcherbakov. Earlier, Orkhan Zeinalov has pled not guilty to a charge of murdering Yegor Shcherbakov. “I don’t agree. I did not kill him,” he said via an interpreter. On Wednesday, Vladimir Marking, official representative of Russia’s Investigative Committee told Itar-Tass that the investigation had enough evidence to form a case against Zeinalov. He added that during questioning Zeinalov admitted to stabbing Schervakov October 10, which led to the victim’s death. Investigators have requested the Azerbaijan-born suspect to be detained until trial. Markin noted that the suspect, who lived in Russia for over 10 years, suddenly seemed to forget Russian language and requested an interpreter. The latter was provided, and now participates in all investigative activity pertaining to Zeinalov, translating not only conversations, but also all procedural documents. The official stressed that the investigation has enough evidence and data and enough professionalism to give them status of proof which will be submitted in court. Egor Shcherbakov was killed overnight to October 10. An unidentified man repeatedly stabbed him in front of his girlfriend. After that, a meeting of citizens was held in Western Biryulyovo, at which the locals demanded to find and punish the murderer of the young man, and to check all migrants living in the area. After the public gathering a group of young people, shouting nationalist slogans, attacked the Biryuza shopping mall. They also began to turn over and break cars. The protesters managed to break in the horticulture base. After the clashes the police detained about 400 people.