Two
Russian businessmen have been found dead in a car with both of their ears cut off. Yuri Moskovoy, 52, and 41-year-old engineer Andrei Likold were found having been tortured in Rostov, . The pair were known to have fought for Vladimir Putin's forces in and had been considered “heroes,” local news outlets claimed. It is thought that they were in the car together, travelling to Volgodonsk where they disappeared. Their family alerted authorities having not heard from either of them for some time, only for their mutilated corpses to be found in the car on the side of a road later that day. Speaking to Russian news site Moskovskij Komsomolets, a source explained how a man in a local brothel arrested for robbery led officers to the bodies. He said: “The body of one of the killed men was tied hand and foot, while both hands and feet were also tied together from behind. The victim had a broken jaw, cuts to his thighs and his ears cut off. The man was clearly tortured before his death. “The other victim, judging by the cut wounds on his back and neck, ran away, but was overtaken by the criminals. At the same time, detectives are not sure that the place where the bodies were found is also the place where the crime was committed: security forces and volunteers are combing the area.” A few days later, two men were arrested – Serik Bimukanov and his second cousin Ilyas Ashekenov – and it has now been claimed that the men were killed in an argument over agriculture as all four men worked in that area. The source added that the two victims were trying to force the other two from their land, and that an attempt to “reach a peaceful agreement was unsuccessful”, but one of the pair was “immediately beaten, tied up, gagged in his mouth and put in a barn”. And investigation is still ongoing.