Defence hopes for conditional sentence to hacker Saaev

No additional circumstances have been revealed in the new case initiated against Albert Saaev, a native of Dagestan, accused of complicity to members of the armed underground. This is the opinion of his advocate Viserhadji Ibragimov, who hopes for a conditional sentence to his client.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya had accused Albert Saaev, who this April was convicted in Moscow for cracking governmental websites of some regions of Northern Caucasus, of complicity to members of the armed underground and sent the respective criminal case initiated against the hacker to the court.

Under the statement of the prosecutor's office, having cracked the official website of the President of Chechnya, the hacker sold the passwords to some unknown persons. During the investigation, by their nicknames in the Internet, inspectors manage to identify the persons to whom Saaev had sold the confidential data. They were organizers of the illegal armed underground.

However, in the opinion of Ibragimov, "there are no grounds to worry for his client." "Nothing threatens him; he's OK and feels well. On Friday, June 4, I saw him. The bill of particulars on the new case was signed. We studied all the materials, and Saaev signed the indictment. The court will take place in Chechnya, in Grozny," said the lawyer.

"There're no circumstances aggravating his guilt. I think the court will meet half-way, same as my client did by admitting his guilt, but explained that he was just got in wrong. If he knew that those whom he had dealt with were members of the bandit underground, he would have surely refused to cooperate with them," the advocate has added.

Besides, Mr Ibragimov said that with the help of his client the investigation moved greatly forward in searching those IAF members, who, however, figured also in other inquiry materials.

The lawyer does not exclude that his client could work in Chechnya as an expert in computer technologies. "Good experts are on demand everywhere; and we do not exclude that he could be helpful both in Chechnya and Moscow. Even staying in Moscow, he could be engaged in contractual work in the interests of any republic, like many programmers do," he said.