Vladimir Hodov

Vladimir Hodov

Participant in the Beslan school siege.
Country: Russia

Biography of Vladimir Khodov

Vladimir Anatolyevich Khodov was born in 1976 in the city of Berdyansk, Khmelnitsky Oblast, Ukraine. His mother, Alexandra Samoshkina, was a nurse at a hospital, and his father is unknown. In 1979, Samoshkina married Anatoly Khodov and they moved to his hometown in North Ossetia, to a village called Elkhotovo. Shortly after their move, Samoshkina gave birth to a child, whom they named Boris. Anatoly Khodov worked as an electrician for the "Kavkaz" collective farm. He passed away in the late 1990s.

According to some media outlets and the Prosecutor General's Office, Khodov lived in Beslan and attended the school that would later be seized by terrorists. However, these claims are not confirmed by other sources. It is believed that Khodov converted to Islam influenced by his brother Boris, who was convicted of murder in 1996 and converted to Islam while in prison.

In 1998, Khodov was wanted for an alleged rape committed in the capital of Adygea, Maykop. Despite this, Khodov enrolled in one of the madrasas in Dagestan or, according to other sources, in the madrasas of Cherkessk, the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia. Upon the completion of his studies, Khodov joined the Wahhabi movement, initially working as a cook for Ruslan Gelayev's detachment and later joining the field commander Iles Gorchikhanov. He was known among the militants by the nicknames "Kashevar" and "Abdullah".

In early 2003, Khodov's brother Boris was released from prison. On June 11, 2003, Boris was arrested by the police for possession of weapons and drugs but was released three days later. On July 1, he abducted a neighbor's girlfriend with the intention of marrying her against her will. On July 19, Boris was killed by the girl's brother. On July 22, Khodov appeared at Boris's funeral and demanded that the burial be conducted according to Muslim rituals, rather than Christian ones. According to the investigation, in December 2003, Khodov was sent to North Ossetia to carry out terrorist attacks. On February 2, 2004, he detonated an explosive device in the center of Vladikavkaz, resulting in the death of three cadets. On May 29, he participated in the mining of railway tracks, which caused a Moscow-Vladikavkaz train to derail.

In 2004, Khodov arrived at the Taliban fighter camp located near the Ingush village of Galashki. There, he met with other militants who would later participate in the Beslan school siege. According to the investigation, Khodov played an active role in the hostage-taking in Beslan from September 1-3, 2004, and was known for his extreme cruelty, according to former hostages. Some reports suggest that Khodov was one of the leaders of the militant group that seized the school. He was killed during the storming of the school on September 3, 2004.

After the end of the counter-terrorist operation in Beslan, some media outlets reported that Khodov had been apprehended by law enforcement agencies. Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov denied this, stating that the first corpse identified among the deceased terrorists was Khodov's. In September 2005, Shamil Basayev, one of the leaders of the Chechen militants, made a statement claiming that Khodov was an agent of Russian intelligence services. According to Basayev, Khodov confessed to him that he was sent to infiltrate the militants. Basayev offered Khodov to continue playing the role of a double agent and use the situation to carry out a terrorist attack in Beslan. Representatives of law enforcement agencies categorically rejected these claims, with Sergei Prokopov, an assistant to the Deputy Prosecutor General in the Southern Federal District, calling Basayev's statement "delusional" and not corresponding to the factual materials of the criminal case on Beslan.

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