Native of Chechnya Muzhikhoeva asks pardon from Medvedev

Zarema Muzhikhoeva, a woman from Chechnya, sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment for an attempt to commit a terror act in Moscow in 2003, has addressed President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev with a petition for pardon. According to her version, she was forced to become a shahid by her material difficulties.

Muzhikhoeva, who has already served about five years in a colony near Moscow, lists mitigating circumstances in her petition: her mother left her, her father perished, her husband was killed, and her child has taken away from her by father-in-law. Muzhikhoeva also wrote that she was born and grew in Bamut, and her mentality was damaged by the war.

"Just at that time," the newspaper "Moskovskiy Komsomolets" quotes the letter of the would-be suicide bomber, "a neighbour addressed me and offered the way how to get rid of my debts. She suggested me to become a shahid, and militants would pay my debts instead. I didn't think high of my life, but I just didn't think then that innocent people could be killed. Then, an offer appeared to solve two problems at once: die and pay the debts."

According to Zarema, she put on the suicide bomber's belt twice - in Mozdok and in Moscow. Both times there was no explosion. Once Muzhikhoeva, as she said, pitied the people around, and on the second time the belt was defective.