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Reputed Russian crime boss survived shooting

17 September 2010 08:01 (UTC +04:00)

Moscow - APA. Police recovered a firearm used in Thursday’s attempt to kill suspected Russian crime boss Aslan Usoyan, better known as Grandpa Hassan, Moscow’s police chief said on Friday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti. The assailant fired shots at 73-year-old Usoyan, who apparently came to visit his son, at around 20:00 local time on Moscow’s main Tverskaya Street. The man and his bodyguard, identified only by his surname, Bagramyan, were rushed to city hospitals. The shooter was hiding in a building on the opposite side of the street.

"Police officers examined the apartment where the shooter was staying, and found the weapon, from which the shots were made," the head of the Moscow police department, Vladimir Kolokoltsev said.

He did not specify the type of the weapon, but law-enforcement sources earlier said the suspected crime boss was shot three times in the stomach with a Makarov pistol. The police chief said the apartment’s owner was already identified. Investigators have also recovered footage from nearby surveillance cameras, which is currently being studied.

Kolokoltsev said also that Usoyan was already operated on. He and his bodyguard are being given medical care, but their condition is unknown.

A criminal case had been opened into attempted murder.

Note that, Usoyan was born in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on February 27, 1937. Many of the Caucasian criminal groups in Russia were said to obey him, especially in the Urals and the south. He was also believed to command strong influence in Moscow, St. Petersburg and central Russia, as well as in some CIS countries and further abroad.
His murder comes two months after another suspected criminal boss, the similarly well-known Tariel Oniani, or Taro, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and extortion. Taro and Grandpa Hassan were believed to be rivals and some reports said their criminal empires had been engaged in a turf war since 2006. Usoyan was close to another alleged crime boss, Vyacheslav Ivankov, nicknamed Yaponchik or Little Japanese. He was shot on October 9, 2009, on leaving a restaurant in Moscow and died some time later at a city hospital.