The Supreme Court of Dagestan sentenced former State Duma deputy Magomed Gadzhiev in absentia to life imprisonment in a special regime colony, convicting him of organizing a double murder and extortion. About this Reports Press service of the courts of Dagestan.
He was also fined 900 thousand rubles.
The court sentenced Gadzhiev’s brother, former director general of the port of Makhachkala and deputy of the People’s Assembly of Dagestan Akhmed Gadzhiev, in absentia to ten years in prison and a similar fine.
According to investigators, Magomed Gadzhiev, through intermediaries, organized the murder of the head of the Theological Institute, Maksud Sadikov. He was shot dead on the evening of June 7, 2011 in Makhachkala. His nephew who was with him was also killed.
In addition, the Gadjiev brothers hatched a plan to seize a controlling stake in Sudorimont, the investigation alleges.
The court said in a statement: “Using their official and political position, they threatened the actual owner of the project with physical violence and forced him to transfer 52% of the shares into fictitious shares. The damages resulting from the attacker’s confiscation exceeded 93 million rubles.” It indicates that Gadzhiev’s family fled the investigation, left the country, and was placed on the international wanted list.
Gadzhiev was a deputy in the State Duma from 2003 to 2021. He co-authored more than 300 bills, including support for the “Dima Yakovlev Law,” which prohibits Americans from adopting Russian children, and the “Yarovaya Package,” which was established to monitor Internet users and phone subscribers. He also co-authored the first “foreign agents” law in 2012. After the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, he available DRC support attached.
At the end of May 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice declared Gadzhiev a “foreign agent.” A source from Meduza close to the Kremlin said that Gagiyev was declared a “foreign agent” at the initiative of the political bloc of the presidential administration and the intelligence services, and this decision was made after the eavesdropping on his conversations was published on Telegram channels. In it, a former MP talks to a specific person who may be cooperating with Western intelligence services. Gadzhiev promises to tell his interlocutor “a lot of things” about the Russian government and the oligarchy in exchange for a passport from one of the European countries. In addition, the former MP admits in the recordings that he is in the United States and confirms that he supports Ukraine.
In November 2025, a court in Makhachkala, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, recognized Magomed Gadzhiev and his family members as an “extremist association.” The suit alleged that after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Gadzhiev traveled abroad, where he “continued to provide financial assistance to Ukrainian paramilitary forces” and expressed his willingness “to cooperate with Western intelligence services in exchange for foreign citizenship.”