A court has given a suspended sentence to a journalist from Dagestan in a case concerning weapons possession.

The Leninsky District Court in Makhachkala has handed commentator Ramazan Rabadanov, who had been covering the trials of participants in the riot at the city’s airport, a suspended sentence of three years and two months. This was reported by Shamil Khadulayev, a member of the Republic’s Public Chamber.

Rabadanov was found guilty of possession of weapons and ammunition (part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code). The court also fined him 50,000 rubles (approx. US$550).

The journalist was detained on the evening of 6 November 2024. He managed to tell his family that on the street “some people approached him and stuffed a grenade into his jacket,” according to Shamil Khadulayev at the time. Khadulayev linked the commentator’s detention to his plans to travel to Stavropol Krai and Krasnodar Krai—both in the Russian south—for court hearings against those accused over the Makhachkala airport riot. The riot took place in October 2023 against the backdrop of the war in the Gaza Strip.

Rabadanov’s lawyer said that the man was beaten during his detention.

At a court hearing on 20 November 2024, the journalist declared that he “was of no use to Dagestan” and apologised to law enforcement and executive authorities. He also promised to delete his social media profiles and asked those in the audience not to take any action in his support. The court later released him from the remand centre to house arrest.

• In autumn 2023, hundreds of Dagestan residents stormed the local airport after news spread about a flight arriving from Tel Aviv. They ran onto the runway and searched vehicles looking for Jews, attempting to stop them entering the republic. After this, criminal cases concerning public disorder were opened in the region, and 136 people became defendants. Some of the trials were transferred to other regions.
• Since the 1990s, Ramazan Rabadanov has commentated on freestyle wrestling, martial arts promotion tournaments for Rings, and football, and on his Instagram and YouTube pages he has given detailed coverage of the airport riot cases. He has also spoken out in defence of the accused.