The key facts

  • Dinara Alkhasova disappeared on October 30 after leaving her home in Makhachkala; she was planning to take tourists to the Sulak Canyon
  • The body was hidden in a pit dug by a tractor driver, supposedly for an outdoor toilet in the settlement of Novy Khushet
  • Two suspects have been detained — the victim's ex-husband and his acquaintance; the suspected motive, according to RIA Novosti, was jealousy

A pit 'for a toilet' as a way to hide the body

In Dagestan, details have been revealed of how the suspects in the murder of 34-year-old Dinara Alkhasova tried to hide the woman's body. The details were disclosed to RIA Novosti by Gayana Garieva, head of the press service of the republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs, as reported by Life.ru.

How the burial was arranged

According to Garieva, an acquaintance of the victim's ex-husband arranged with a tractor driver for excavation work on a plot belonging to a relative of the suspect on the outskirts of the settlement of Novy Khushet. The worker was told that he needed to prepare a spot for an outdoor toilet. He completed the job and drove away, suspecting nothing. After his departure, the alleged accomplice drove up to the pit in a car, took the woman's body out of the trunk, dropped it into the hole and covered it with earth.

A second pit for concealment

The attempts to cover the tracks did not end there: the man contacted the tractor driver again and claimed that he had supposedly placed the toilet in the wrong spot. The worker was asked to fill in the first pit and dig a new one two or three meters away — the suspects hoped this would disguise the burial site. 'Officers of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan established not only the burial site, but also the very methods used to try to thwart the search,' Life.ru quotes Garieva as saying.

Circumstances of the disappearance

Dinara Alkhasova went missing on October 30 after leaving her home in Makhachkala. In her spare time from her main job she worked as a tourist driver, and on the day she disappeared she was planning to take clients to the Sulak Canyon. Police found her body and detained two suspects — the victim's ex-husband and his acquaintance. Earlier, Life.ru reported the detention of the taxi driver's ex-husband: according to preliminary data, he and his acquaintance may have killed the woman and attempted to cover up the crime. According to RIA Novosti, the suspected motive for the murder was jealousy.