The murder of Shamil Odamanov is a viral beheading video in which two captured Russian men are shown to be murdered by decapitation and gunfire. It was uploaded on YouTube by the members of Russian neo-Nazi groups in 2007. Widely known as The Russian neo-Nazi beheading video (Russian: Казнь таджика и дагестанца - The Execution of a Tajiki and a Dagestani), the incident was considered a cold case until 2020.
Video description
The video begins with a swastika on a red digital background accompanied by the song "Русь" by the Russian folk metal band Arkona. The camera focuses on a landscape and displays the text "Operation of the NSPR for the arrest and execution of two colonists from Dagestan and Tajikistan. 2007". Shortly afterward the camera focuses on the victims who are both tied up with hands and feet both behind their back. The music fades. While on their knees they say in their native Russian "We were arrested by Russian national socialists." The camera then closes up on the face of the first victim. Behind him stands a man wearing a camouflage suit with a serrated knife in his right hand. A cry - "Glory to Russia!" is heard, after which the killer begins to saw the head of his victim in quick movements. The action is accompanied by the sound of the spine being sawn. The second victim is simply shot at close range in the back of the head, before his body falls into a grave that was dug out in preparation. Electronic music is playing; two masked men perform the Nazi salute. The video ends with a shot of a concrete wall with the inscription "NSPR" in Russian with a swastika drawn next to it.
The appearance of the video and the first statement of the NSPR
On August 12, 2007, on the LiveJournal blog platform of user vik23, a two-minute video entitled "Execution of a Tajik and a Dag" was posted, which captured the murder of two non Slavic young men. A few hours later, the video of the execution was posted on the news website of Russian ultra-radicals NS/WP (National Socialist White Power) and on the LiveJournal blog of the user antigipsyone. On August 13, the video was included in the top thirty most popular web searches of Russian search engine Yandex. The next day, August 14, on the news website of the Caucasian separatists Kavkaz Center, a statement was published by a hitherto unknown neo-Nazi group: NSPR (National Socialist Party of Russia), which claimed responsibility for the double murder:
This statement was also posted on the page of the LiveJournal user vik23, who was the first to publish the video. A day later, on August 15, a student of the Maikop State Technological University, Viktor Milkov (vik23), who, by his own admission, was a supporter of National Socialist ideas, came to the Prosecutor's Office of Adygea (Russia) and admitted to posting the video, claiming he received the video and posted it at the request of an unknown individual he met online, who introduced herself only as a "girl from Germany."
The Reaction of the Russian ultra nationalist groups
On August 15, 2007, the press of the nationalist group National Socialist Society (N.S.S.), under whose auspices the double murder was allegedly committed, published a press release:
In response to an inquiry from Gazeta.Ru, the leader of the N.S.S Dmitry Rumyantsev said: "national Socialist Society doesn't take responsibility for the video published, but neither provide an official refutation of its involvement in the recording. There is nothing to comment on. Everything is already very clear from the video". Leader of the Slavic Union, Dmitry Demushkin, implied that the video could have been filmed by Russian special services or members of radical Islamists groups to further discredit the ultra-right movement. Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) leader Aleksandr Belov suggested that the murder was committed either by the National Socialists or by the National Socialists with the help of special services. He believes that the theory that the video was filmed by the Caucasians themselves in order to discredit the Russian patriotic movement, should not even exist.
Video expertise
A week after the publication of the video, on August 21, 2007, the head of the press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Oleg Elnikov, said that the preliminary results of the video examination showed "obvious signs of editing." This ambiguous statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was interpreted by the media as confirmation of the theory voiced earlier (on August 16) by a source from the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the murder video was staged (fictional).