Prosecutor endorses indictment in Putin assassination plot case

Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Malinovsky has endorsed the indictment against Ilya Pyanzin, accused of plotting the assassination of Vladimir Putin. Plotting the assassination of statesman is one of the charges against Pyanzin, a PGO official told Itar-Tass on Thursday. According to the investigators, Pyanzin who was in Ukraine in December 2011, joined an armed group which had been set up at the orders by militants' leader Doku Umarov. Pyanzin had been invited to the armed group by its members Adam Osmayev and Ruslan Madayev. "The group plotted to assassinate presidential candidate Vladimir Putin with the view of terminating his political activity, and also in revenge for his fight against illegal paramilitary formations in the North Caucasus and restoration of the constitutional order in the Chechen Republic," the PGO said. The group planned to assassinate Putin by exploding a car bomb during the passage of his motorcade. Preparing for their crime in December 2011, they illegally made two cumulative charges for destroying armoured vehicles and tested them in suburban Odessa, Ukraine. On January 4, 2012, Madayev died in a fire that broke out as he was making a new bomb. Pyanzin and Osmayev were detained by Ukrainian police. Pyanzin was later extradited to Russia. On August 25, 2012, Pyanzin was extradited from Ukraine to Russia and brought to the Lefortovo remand prison in Moscow. On February 27, 2012, media outlets reported that an assassination plot against Putin had been exposed. On January 4, an explosion ripped through an apartment in Odessa, and two days later, Ukraine's Security Service advised its FSB colleagues. Police found in the apartment bomb parts. Ruslan Madayev, who had rented the apartment, was killed in the explosion while the second victim, Ilya Pyanzin, survived. They came to Odessa together from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey with "clear instructions from representatives of terrorist Doku Umarov. Adam Osmayev, who was injured in the blast, escaped. Odessa police then asked citizens to help find two extremely dangerous criminals: Adam Osmayev and Aslanbek Osmayev, natives of Chechnya. In a joint operation by Russian and Ukrainian secret services, Adam Osmayev was detained in an Odessa apartment. He had been wanted by Interpol since 2007. He began to cooperate with the investigators and told them that the "final objective was to come to Moscow and try to assassinate premier Putin." Osmayev said he had no intention to become a suicide bomber, and that Ruslan Madayev was ready to become one. According to secret services, Osmayev lived in London for a long time. He was terrorists' liaison man in Odessa and an instructor. His task was to train terrorists and ferry them to Moscow.