The Murders of Iosif Milgram and Dmitry Tarasov

Iosif Milgram was a prominent Almaty businessman, architect and head of the Almatygorstroy construction organization. On December 21, 1993, he arrived at a residential courtyard near the intersection then known as Furmanov and Satpaev streets. Milgram and his driver Dmitry Tarasov were shot and killed there in broad daylight.

The victims

Contemporary retrospective reporting describes Milgram as a well-known construction executive in the city. Tarasov was driving him that day. Both men belong to the same criminal episode and are therefore kept in one dossier rather than being split into separate pages.

An investigation that stalled

Kazakhstanskaya Pravda's reconstruction of the case describes a difficult early inquiry. Witness accounts conflicted, the attacker had left little usable evidence, and investigators considered multiple rumors about business disputes and organized crime. The case remained unresolved for roughly five years.

Later reporting based on former investigator Vladislav Beklemishev's account says the breakthrough came in March 1998, after police stopped a Mercedes for a traffic violation in Almaty. The driver, Zakir Salakhutdinov, shot and killed police officer Syrgabek Sugirbaev and was later detained.

The link back to the 1993 killings

During questioning, Salakhutdinov admitted involvement in the Milgram and Tarasov murders. Investigators concluded that Milgram's business associate Valentin Li had commissioned the killing after Milgram discovered alleged financial wrongdoing and threatened consequences inside the company. Later summaries state that Li paid Salakhutdinov about US$20,000.

That motive is presented here as the investigative and judicial theory reported by Kazakh sources, not as an independent reconstruction by Crime by Region. Rumors that the murders were caused by racketeering, romantic disputes or generalized criminal pressure are not treated as established facts.

The 1999 judgments

According to the 2022 Zakon.kz reconstruction republished by Mail.kz, the Almaty City Court sentenced Salakhutdinov to the death penalty in 1999 and sentenced Li to 15 years in prison. Li was later released early on medical grounds. Because the surviving reporting is inconsistent about what ultimately happened to Salakhutdinov after sentencing, this page does not state an execution date or claim an outcome that is not consistently documented.

Why the case matters in Kazakhstan's crime history

Retrospective Kazakh reporting frequently cites the Milgram case among the early high-profile contract killings of the post-Soviet period in Almaty. Its significance lies not only in the public profile of the victim, but in the way a seemingly cold case was reopened through an unrelated police encounter years later.

Timeline

1. December 21, 1993
   Milgram and Tarasov are killed in Almaty

   The businessman and his driver are shot in a residential courtyard. The attacker escapes.

2. 1993–1998
   The investigation remains unresolved

   Police pursue witnesses, associates and multiple theories but do not identify the killer.

3. March 1998
   A separate police stop creates a breakthrough

   After a police officer is killed during a traffic stop, Zakir Salakhutdinov is detained. Questioning later connects him to the 1993 double murder.

4. 1999
   Convictions in Almaty

   Salakhutdinov receives a death sentence and Valentin Li receives a 15-year prison sentence, according to later Kazakh reporting on the court outcome.