Ramses Gaichayev

Ramses Lobazanovich Gaichayev (; born 1976, Shelkovskaya, Chechen-Ingush ASSR, RSFSR) is a Russian serial killer, mass murderer, rapist, robber and brigand of ethnic Chechen descent. With the help of four accomplices, he robbed, raped and killed at least 10 people in and Pyatigorsk from 1997 to 1999. Due to the severity of the crimes and the fact that all the victims were ethnic Russians, prosecutors petitioned to try Gaichayev and his main accomplice on charges of genocide — the first such recorded proposition in the country's modern history.

The genocide charges were eventually dropped, and Gaichayev was convicted on all counts and sentenced to death. The sentence was then automatically commuted to life imprisonment due to the moratorium on capital punishment in the country, and he remains behind bars.

Background and murders Little is publicly available about Gaichayev's life prior to his crimes, other than the fact he was born in 1976 in Shelkovskaya to an ethnic Chechen family.

Gaichayev was initially arrested by Chechen militants in 1998, after a Sharia court ordered that he be detained for the murder of an elderly woman. However, when federal security officers approached the village, he was released and quickly resumed his killings. Eventually, Gaichayev and Khalidov were arrested again by federal authorities in December 1999 in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt, on the outskirts of Grozny. Rizvan Magomadov was detained in April 2001 during a sting operation in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, where he was the ringleader of a heroin smuggling ring along with several Tajikistani nationals. Later that day, Gaichayev was given the death sentence (later automatically commuted to life imprisonment) while Khalidov received 7 years imprisonment, and both were legally obliged to pay fines to the victims' families. Both of them refused to speak at trial or to the media after the verdicts were announced.

As of November 2022, Gaichayev remains behind bars and is currently imprisoned at the Black Dolphin Prison in Sol-Iletsk, Orenburg Oblast. No information is available about the fate of Khalidov and the other gang members.