Magomed Evloev's family to challenge decision of Ingush SC

The family of the assassinated owner of the oppositional website "Ingushetia.Ru" Magomed Evloev is unhappy with the decision of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia and drafts complaints to the SC of Russia and the European Court for Human Rights (ECtHR).

As reported earlier by the "Caucasian Knot", on March 2 the Supreme Court commute a sentence to Ibragim Evloev, former head of security of the MIA boss, convicted for murdering Magomed Evloev. Earlier, he was sentenced to two years of imprisonment, but now custody was replaced by "restriction of travel." Besides, the two-year ban on the convict to work in power agencies has been lifted.

As explained by presiding judge Tagir Ozdoev, the republic's SC has commuted Evloev's penalty because his indictment was reformulated. According to the judge, "it was not proved that the defendant had caused death because of poor performance of his professional duties", but that "defendant was right in bringing his pistol to readiness", because there was information that their car could be attacked with the aim to release Magomed Evloev, and he got ready to resist the attack.

Mr Ozdoev has added that after the victim began to demand to stop the car, a quarrel burst out; and an involuntary shot happened. "No violation of the law on militia regarding use of firearms was established," the judge has noted.

Yakhya Evloev, father of the oppositionist, has stated that in fact the murderer was acquitted. "We'll challenge the decision and file complaints to the Supreme Court of Russia and the ECtHR," he said. According to the oppositionist's father, courts of the first and second instances had upheld the position of the defendant only and ignored the victims' opinion, as the newspaper "Time of News" writes.

"The materials of the case run that Magomed allegedly tried to pull the sub-machine gun out of the militiaman," Yakhya Evloev has noted. "The other one, having heard the shout: 'Leave it, leave it!' allegedly turned quickly, bumped his head; and a shot was occasionally triggered at that moment. However, the examination of the sub-machine gun, which he had allegedly tried to pull out, found no fingerprints of my son on the weapon. Experts found only blood traces there."

The father also reminded that the courts refused to follow the victims' petition and summon as witness the Nazran GOVD (City Interior Department) inspector, who had drawn up the statement on mandatory delivery of Magomed Evloev to interrogation. "The case files even do not mention the inspector's public statement, in which he admitted that he had drawn up the statement already after the death of my son, following the order of his bosses," said Yakhya Evloev.

Magomed Gandarov, the victims' advocate, said that the SC's decision was a complete surprise: "We thought they'd leave everything as it is not to pump up spirits around this case; therefore, certainly, this decision became an unpleasant surprise for us." Mr Gandarov could not guess in what way the court would restrict the convict's freedom. "As far as I know, this form of punishment was applied for the first time in Ingushetia; so, nobody knows so far, how it will be realized in practice," said the lawyer.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also expressed indignation at the decision of the Supreme Court to commute Ibragim Evloev's verdict. "It's just shocking that Magomed Evloev's killer was just released from prison," said Nina Ognianova, coordinator of CPJ's European and Middle-Asian programmes, and added that the SC of Ingushetia encourages the feeling of impunity among journalists' killers, as the "Interfax" reports.