South Ossetia revisits triple murder after sudden death of suspect

Zhanna Tarkhanova

Tskhinval

Suspect Kulaev dies

Gennady Kulaev, a suspect in a high-profile crime almost twenty years ago, has died in South Ossetia. According to experts, President Alan Gagloev, whose brother also appeared in this case, could have been involved in his death.

The sudden death of Gennady Kulaev, a resident of Tskhinval, has again drawn the attention of South Ossetian society to a triple murder that took place in 2004. The investigation of this story dragged on for eighteen years, but was never completed. Now some claim that Gagloev’s people “removed” Kulaev as a dangerous witness, and others that Kulaev’s death was the result of torture he was subjected to in pre-trial detention, and indirectly blame the former president, Anatoly Bibilov, for this.

Suspect Kulaev dies

The Case of the Disappeared Entrepreneurs and the Truck of Apples

Suspect Kulaev dies
In January 2004 three entrepreneurs from North Ossetia and Dagestan went to South Ossetia to buy fruit and then disappeared without a trace. All three were citizens of the Russian Federation. South Ossetian law enforcement launched an investigation into their disappearance and arrested Gennady Kulaev and Alexander Gagloev as suspects.

Alan Gagloev at that time served in the State Security Committee of South Ossetia.

The prosecutor’s office did not expand on the alleged motives for the crime. It is only known that a KamAZ loaded with apples, which belonged to three missing men, somehow ended up in North Ossetia. A man called Mels Kisiev tried to sell these apples in Vladikavkaz. In his testimony, he said that it was Gennady Kulaev and Alexander Gagloev who asked him to drive the KamAZ across the border.

Suspect Kulaev dies

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Suspect Kulaev dies

Sixteen years later

Sixteen years later in 2020, South Ossetia was led by Anatoly Bibilov and Alan Gagloev headed the opposition Nykhas party.

One day in June, in the suburbs of Tskhinvali during construction at a water canal, the remains of three people with bullet holes in their skulls were discovered. The General Prosecutor’s Office of South Ossetia opened a criminal case, which was merged into one proceeding with the 2004 case. Due to newly discovered evidence, Gennady Kulaev and Alexander Gagloev were re-arrested. Both denied involvement in the triple murder.

The investigation reported on the “gathering of circumstantial evidence”, which was not enough to indict Gagloev and Kulaev, however. The Prosecutor General of South Ossetia appealed to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation with a request for help in conducting a psychophysiological examination of the suspects and sending a polygraph examiner to the republic.

Relatives of those killed eighteen years ago not only believe Alexander Gagloev and Gennady Kulaev are guilty, but that Alan Gagloev himself was involved in it.

The brother of one of those killed, Dagestani Bagangadzhi Bagandov, states that he knew the names of the killers for a long time, but “there was no way to imprison them until the bodies were found, because they had Gagloev Alan Eduardovich, he worked in the KGB.”

According to Bagandov, when the KamAZ carrying the apples passed through the Russian customs, Alan Gagloev himself drove behind him in an Opel car. They say that Alan Gagloev entered the territory of North Ossetia after that KamAZ. During interrogation he said that he was traveling on official business, “however, according to the information received at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of South Ossetia, Gagloev was not sent on a business trip during the specified period.”

Suspect Kulaev Suspect Kulaev diesdies

Suspect Kulaev dies

The Court That Wasn’t

The trial was supposed to begin in the spring of 2022, but was postponed by a presidential election. Anatoly Bibilov tried to get re-elected for a second term, with Alan Gagloev as his competitor.

In a televised debate during the election campaign, Alan Gagloev denied any allegations that his family were involved in the triple murder. After victory, he promised in an interview with TASS that the trial of his brother and Kulaev would be open and honest.

“My position was initially as follows: if a person is guilty, whether it is my brother or yours, he must be held accountable,” Gagloev said.

But just weeks after the inauguration, Gagloev and Kulaev were released. There is no official information about how and when the court decided on their innocence in the public domain. According to unofficial information, the suspects were released on the personal instructions of Gagloev, and after the fact, the judges adopted the verdict which the new president needed.

Suspect Kulaev dies

“Bibilovsky” and “Gagloevsky” trail

Then on August 31, 2022, shortly after his release from prison, the suspect Kulaev dies.

A pro-government Telegram channel claims that Kulaev died from severe beatings and torture in prison. The authors of the channel lay the blame for Kulaev’s death on the regime of ex-president Anatoly Bibilov. In their opinion, the former leader of the republic unreasonably persecuted Gennady Kulaev and Alexander Gagloev in order to eliminate his rival Alan Gagloev from the political arena.

Bloggers connected with Alan Gagloev’s entourage write that the security forces demanded that Kulaev testify against Alexander Gagloev, but Kulaev refused and was tortured:

“They broke his ribs, knocked out his teeth, beat on his kidneys. At the trial, [Kulaev] was ready to take all three murders on himself if only they would stop beating him. But until Bibilov lost the election, Kulaev continued to be beaten to testify.”

The theory that Kulaev died “because of undermined health in prison” was also disseminated by the main information resource of the South Ossetian authorities, Res news agency. The agency’s journalists interviewed friends and lawyers of the deceased who claim that “Kulaev had serious health problems after prison.”

“He complained of severe pain in the kidneys, regularly took painkillers. He said that in the pre-trial detention center he was severely beaten, hung up by his legs,” Konstantin Tibilov, a friend of Kulaev’s, said.

The theory of the “Gagloev trace” in the death of Kulaev is promoted by the authors of another Telegram channel, who believe that the death of an important witness and a suspect in a crime could be beneficial to the current president.

“If Kulaev had died from kidney failure, as the authorities say, the conclusion of the forensic medical examination would have been published and replicated everywhere. There are completely contradictory rumors among the residents of Tskhinval, and the majority is on the side of those who believe that the “Gagloevites” got rid of an accomplice in the triple murder case. There is also talk about him being given low-quality methadone.”

In fact, no official information about the exact reason for the death of Kulaev has yet been made public. Conclusions about his death have not been disclosed, and experts and journalists in Tskhinvali categorically refuse to comment on the situation.

“In this confusing story, the brother of the president appears. Tskhinvali is a small city, and so far few people dare to speak out on such a sensitive topic … ”, as a resident explained to JAMnews.

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Suspect Kulaev dies