The limitation period: what is the threat to Ibragim Suleymanov in the murder case
Moscow's Basmanny Court has placed businessman Ibrahim Suleymanov under arrest until December 2, charged with three counts of complicity in the murders. Among them is the 2004 assassination attempt on Georgy Tal, head of the Federal Financial Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Service. The accused did not admit his guilt. According to the Izvestia source, the alleged killer of Tal testified against Suleymanov — he was also arrested, but he died during interrogation. The details are in our material.
What is Ibragim Suleymanov accused of?
On October 3, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow arrested businessman Ibrahim Suleymanov, suspected of involvement in three murders, for two months. The meeting was held behind closed doors, although the suspect and his lawyers were against it.
According to investigators, Suleymanov ordered the murder of the head of the Federal Service for Financial Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy, Georgy Tal, who at that time participated in the bankruptcy proceedings of several metropolitan airports. He was shot on April 28, 2004, near the department's office.
After parking the car, Tal headed for the door of the building. At that moment, a hitman approached him from behind and fired a TT pistol. The first bullet entered the back, the next two stuck in the official's briefcase, and the fourth hit the stomach. The killer fled in the light green "ten", in which his accomplice was located. Tal was taken to the hospital, but it was not possible to save him — he died in intensive care on the same day.
According to the Izvestia source, on October 1, security forces detained the alleged perpetrator of the high-profile murder in Odintsovo. He turned out to be 55-year—old Abakar Darbishev, formerly the leader of a large Dagestan organized crime group. His house was searched. Darbishev himself was taken to the department to testify, but during the interrogation he died of cardiac arrest, the source said. However, he managed to testify against Ibrahim Suleymanov.
On October 3, the Basmanny Court granted the petition for the election of a preventive measure to Mukhamed Darbishev under the article on attempted murder. According to preliminary information, this is a relative of Abakar Darbishev. Investigators continue to identify other defendants in the case.
In total, Suleymanov was charged with three counts of complicity in the murders. One of them may be connected with the assassination attempt on the trade union leader of Vnukovo Airlines, Gennady Borisov. In 1999, in Moscow, he was stabbed 12 times in the entrance of a house on Garibaldi Street.
— Suleymanov does not admit guilt. The defense is appealing the court's ruling. We disagree with the accusation," one of his lawyers told Izvestia.
Who is Ibragim Suleymanov?
Ibragim Suleymanov was born on May 29, 1967 in the Dagestan village of Rutul. In the 1990s, he started doing business in the field of transport and aviation. He was one of the founders and first Deputy General Director of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosaviakonsortium, which controlled a large stake in Vnukovo Airlines in the late 1990s.
In 2002, Suleymanov and his business partner, Tatevos Surinov, CEO of Rosaviakonsorcium, were involved in a case related to the raider seizure of the Rodeo Auto dealership in the Vnukovo airport building. The damage from the crime amounted to more than 1.6 million rubles. Then, during a search, an unregistered pistol was found in Suleymanov's possession.
In 2004, he was arrested on charges of fraud and money laundering. The case concerned the theft and legalization of aviation equipment worth over $4.5 million. According to the investigation, in 2002 Suleymanov and Surinov purchased an automated air traffic control system from the French company Thomson, previously installed at Kazan International Airport. Then they reissued it to Rosaviakonsorcium and forced Tataeronavigation to pay for its use.
In 2007, the Basmanny Court of Moscow sentenced Ibragimov to ten years and four months in prison, and in 2008, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow issued a verdict on a new episode of fraud, increasing the sentence to twelve years. In 2015, the entrepreneur was released on parole.
Ibragim Suleymanov is now listed as the founder of two companies, according to the Rusprofile service. He owns a share of 40% of the authorized capital in Universus LLC. The organization has been operating since 1999 and is engaged in consulting on commercial and management issues.
Other founders include Ibrahim Suleymanov's son, Rasul, as well as Artur Surinov and Anush Surinov. In 2024, the latter sued the company to recover dividends and interest for using other people's funds — she received more than 25 million rubles by court order.
Suleymanov's share in the Mixwell IT company is 24.8% (other founders are Innokenty Baskakov, Rasul Suleymanov and Artur Surinov). The organization is engaged in software development, it was registered in March 2023.
At the same time, Suleymanov is considered the actual owner of the Sirena-Travel air ticket booking system. He is not listed as a shareholder, having transferred formal ownership to relatives — his son owns 25% of the shares directly, and is the beneficiary of a number of companies — LLC Universus, LLC Avto Val, LLC Agency Mavins, LLC Mixwell. As of 2024, the family controls at least 49% of Sirena, experts believe.
The total revenue of all Suleymanov's enterprises in 2024 amounted to 867 million rubles, an increase of 59%. The total profit is 610 million. His son is a founder in four organizations. Last year, they earned 997 million rubles, and the profit was 922 million.
What threatens Suleymanov
We are talking about a suspected crime committed more than twenty years ago. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the norms of criminal law on the statute of limitations for prosecution, said Sofya Lukinova, head of the Legal Department of VMT Consult. He is sentenced to 15 years for a particularly serious crime, lawyer Oleg Pantyushov added. However, it may not be applied if the accused was hiding from the investigation, or if the court finds it impossible to apply the statute of limitations due to the nature of the crime committed.
"The fact that the arrest took place two decades later indicates the presence of new circumstances or evidence that allowed law enforcement agencies to resume the investigation,— Sofya Lukinova believes. — In such cases, it is possible to retrain the evidence base, use modern forensic methods, as well as rely on witness testimony that was not previously available.
If the investigation's version is confirmed, the defendant faces such articles of the Criminal Code as kidnapping and murder, said Alexey Gavrishev, lawyer and managing partner of AVG Legal. For aggravated kidnapping, the maximum term is 15 years in prison.
— The punishment for murder is much more severe — up to life imprisonment. Additionally, there may be a question of using his official position, which further aggravates the situation," the expert said. "For the defendant, this is a real prospect of life imprisonment if the court finds him guilty of murder.
According to him, in the case of the murder article, "the time factor does not work as a defense.": Russian law specifically excludes murders from the category of crimes that are "forgotten over time."
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