Maksharip Aushev

Aushev was a businessman and a member of a prominent Ingushetian family.[5] In 2007, Aushev's son and nephew were both kidnapped. He blamed Ingush security forces under the control of then-President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov for the abductions.[5] Aushev organized protests against the security forces and the Zyazikov government.[5]

In 2008, journalist Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of Ingushetia.org and a critic of the Zyazikov government, was shot and killed while in police custody. Aushev personally took over ownership of Ingushetia.org following Yevloyev's death.[5]

The Russian government removed Zyazikov in October 2008 and installed Yunus-Bek Yevkurov as president.[5] Yevkurov offered dissidents in Ingushetia a certain amount of protection from politically motivated attacks.[5] Aushev largely supported Yevkurov policies towards the opposition, and withdrew from his most vocal opposition to the government since Yevkurov's installation.[4] Aushev accepted a position on a human rights council set up by the ombudsman of Russia's federal government.[5] However, he remained a vocal critic of former President Zyazikov and his relatives, as well as the human rights violations allegedly committed by Russian special forces in Ingushetia and Chechnya.[5]

Aushev survived an attempted kidnapping in September 2009.[5] In an interview with an Australian television network, he revealed that he had “very strong information that I was going to be killed” during the failed abduction.[5]

On October 25, 2009, Aushev was shot and killed on the spot when gunmen attacked his car on a road near Nalchik in the neighboring Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.[5] He was buried in the Ingush village of Surkhakhi.[4]

On 8 December 2009, Aushev was posthumously awarded the Russian Federation's human rights ombudsman's medal “Спешите делать добро” (Speshite delat dobro).[6]

In a 2013 RT documentary, Blood and Honor: Chechen Vendetta Code, Aushev's father, Magomed Aushev, states that he has spent more than $1 million trying to track down his son's killers. Magomed said he would forgive his son's killers only if they came to him first.[7]