The investigating judge has decreed the “provisional dismissal” of the case. “There is not enough evidence to attribute criminal responsibility to a specific person as the author, accomplice or accessory to the facts that gave rise to the formation of this case,” he said in an order signed in September and which has just been released by sources from the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community (TSJ). According to sources close to the case, the lack of collaboration on the part of the Russian authorities has prevented any progress in the investigation of the crime.
Kuzminov, a captain in the Russian Army, deserted in August 2023 and landed with his helicopter on Ukrainian territory, in Kharkiv, during the war resulting from the invasion of Ukraine. Later he moved, with a false passport, to live in Villajoyosa, a tourist municipality in Alicante, adjacent to Benidorm, to an urbanization where he tried to go unnoticed. The Kremlin had put a price on his head, accused of treason. In February 2024, he was assaulted in the parking lot of his apartment block, where he was shot and run over by the car apparently driven by two people. A week later, he was identified by his real name.
At first, this case was treated as another outrage. A neighbor had alerted the emergency services that the Villajoyosa Local Police officers appeared at the scene and immediately reported it to the Civil Guard, because they found evidence that the man who was run over also had gunshot wounds. A court began investigating a possible homicide or murder and declared the proceedings secret. The investigation fell to the Homicide group of the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard in Alicante, which little by little filled in the gaps in the case. Indeed, a shooting had killed a person who was carrying a false passport and who in just a week was identified as Kuzminov. The car used by the alleged hitmen was found burned in an area of El Campello, a municipality located south of Villajoyosa.
The Government was cautious in the face of an alleged murder that involved two countries at war. “We must let the Civil Guard do its job and the investigation progress,” said minister and spokesperson Pilar Alegría at the time. Sources from the Spanish secret services, however, confirmed to EL PAÍS that the hand of the Kremlin was behind the murder. The investigations continued and, according to sources close to the case, they came to blows against the Russian refusal to collaborate in this matter. Any request from Alicante to Moscow was met with silence. Almost two years later, the head of position 3 of the Civil and Investigation Section of the Court of Instance received a report in which the Homicide agents reported that “it has not been possible to determine the material or intellectual responsibility for the shooting of the victim.” For this reason, it relies on the Criminal Procedure Law to file the case. “The provisional dismissal of the proceedings must be agreed upon,” the judge rules.
