Who was Rovshan Lenkaranski?

Rovshan Janiyev was born to a police family in Lankaran, Azerbaijan, on January 27th, 1975.

When he was 17 years old, local gangsters murdered his father while he was investigating their illegal activities. During the trial of the individuals accused of murdering his father, Rovshan – then 17 at the time – brought a gun to the courtroom, and publicly threatened to kill the defendants. He received two years in prison for his actions, but was released early on March 4th, 1997 by the decision of Sabail district court in Baku.

However, his time in prison did not dissuade him from entering the criminal world.

In June of 2000, Janiyev shot and killed Baku crime boss Keramat Mammadov. When apprehended by authorities, he was so seriously beaten that he sustained heavy brain injury and was subject to mental illness for the rest of his life. He was again imprisoned, but released on grounds of psychological health.

Fearing his life, Lenkaranski fled Azerbaijan to Moscow, where he came to control most of the Azerbaijani gangs in the Russian capital and began protection rackets and trafficking drugs.

The death of Ded Hasan in 2010 sent a shockwave throughout the criminal world, and Lenkaranski was quickly fingered out for having organized Ded Hasan’s death.

However, Ded Hasan was not Rovshan’s only ‘enemy’ – to this list can be added many Chechen gangsters, in addition to Nadir Selifov (Lotu Quli).

Lenkaranski died on August 18th, 2016 in Istanbul. While walking out of his hotel on Yildiz Prospect, he was attacked by unknown individuals. He received more than 20 bullet wounds and died in Istanbul’s “Florence Nightingale Hospital.”

While international and state media cooly greeted news of Janiyev’s death, he was given a large popular burial and mourned in several cities throughout Turkey and Azerbaijan. “Kanal 13” posted the following video on their Facebook channel. Text accompanying the video read: “May Allah have mercy on him.”

“Inter.Az” posted a video of his burial ceremony in Lenkaran:

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