Ingushetia buries casualties of militiamen vs. civilians skirmish; Evkurov supervises investigation

President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov has taken the investigation into the fire-fight that resulted in loss of his security and a civilian under his personal control. On April 29, Mr Evkurov was present at the casualties' funerals.

According to the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation for Ingushetia, on April 28, 2009, at about 7 p.m., in the territory of the "Imperial" petrol station, located along the "Kavkaz" Federal Highway, 15 meters to the west from the concrete fence that regulates the circular traffic in the Magas crossroads, a quarrel burst out between employees of the Republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and civilians, which grew into a fire-fight.

As a result of the incident, militiamen Musa Korigov (born in 1976) and authorized operative Beslan Khuchbarov (born in 1979), and a civilian named Amerkhan Kodzoev (born in 1988) received gunshot wounds, from which Kodzoev and Khuchbarov died, and Korigov was placed into the Ingushetian Republic's Clinical Hospital.

"It all started with verbal abuse, which turned into fistfight. The security struck Kodzoev's face and broke his nose. His relatives learnt about it, took their cars and overtook the car with security in Magas circle. Then, a fire-fight began," the website "Magas.Ru" quotes local residents.