MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) – Georgian authorities have apprehended a Chechen native believed to have fatally shot a Russian diplomat and his wife earlier this month in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia, a spokesman for Russia’s federal Investigative Committee said Thursday.
Yusup Lakayev is accused of shooting the senior Russian Embassy official as well as his wife in the garage of their home around 8:30 a.m. on September 9. Russia is now preparing a request for Lakayev’s extradition, Russian investigative spokesman Vladimir Markin said at a press conference.
Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reported last week that, despite earlier speculation of a political motive, the killing was actually linked to conflicts over the $35 million construction of a Russian Embassy complex in Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi.
Dmitry Vishernyov, first secretary at the Russian Embassy in Sukhumi, was killed instantly by a gunshot to the head. His wife, Olga, was badly wounded in the attack and died five days later.
The attacker initially tried to detonate a homemade bomb next to the diplomat’s garage, the investigative spokesman said. But following the failure of that device – a five-liter fire extinguisher packed with nails and shards of wood – the killer approached the couple in their car and shot them.
Abkhazia broke away from Georgia following an ethnically tinged war in 1992-93, just after the Soviet collapse. More than a decade later, in 2008, Russia formally recognized the province as independent following a brief war over another disputed Georgian region, South Ossetia. Many Abkhaz now have Russian passports.
However, political violence has plagued Abkhazia. In February last year, the republic’s president, Alexander Ankvab, narrowly escaped a shooting and bomb attack on his motorcade.
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