Court session on Ruslan Musaev's rehabilitation postponed again

Today, the Moscow City Court started considering the claim on rehabilitation of Ruslan Musaev, who was earlier acquitted on the attempt case on President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov in May 2007. After a ten-minute session, the consideration of the case on the merits was reappointed on March 10. The reason for delay was in the statement made by the representative of the Ministry of Finance about the need on their part to calculate damage caused to Musaev by unjustified prosecution and formulate their position in the court.

Mr Musaev himself said that he finds it important not only to receive indemnification of his financial damage - expenses on health improvement after prison, food parcels from relatives and defender's services, but also to restore his reputation in order to have an opportunity to get a job and live in peace.

"I think that I got into the focus of special agencies, first of all, because of my nationality, and, secondly, because I'm a relative of another suspect in this case. But the criminal code does not punish for relative ties."

According to his story, in prison he was morally pressed; operative agents threatened him with physical execution.

However, as he believes, even if his claims are satisfied, hardly this judicial precedent will have any effect on the approach of judges and inspectors to Chechen suspects, accused and defendants, who are frequently found guilty just by virtue of their nationality.