Top Chechen judge murdered in Caucasus: official

A judge and businessman from the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya were found dead Wednesday alongside a road in a neighbouring region, officials said.

Adam Agakhadzhiev, a judge in Chechnya’s arbitration court, and businessman Isa Atayav were gunned down by unknown individuals next to a road in Karbadino-Balkaria, investigators said in a statement.

Both had bullet wounds in their head and their stomachs, the statement added. The pair had gone missing the day before.

The site of two separatist wars after the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya still sees regular attacks on officials and security forces that are often blamed on Islamist insurgents, despite a return to relative stability under its controversial leader Ramzan Kadyrov.