In Chechnya, local resident convicted for abduction committed 13 years ago

A former power agent of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has been sentenced to five years in prison for kidnapping in 1998 of a resident of the Gudermes District. The convict appealed against the verdict, but the Supreme Court of Chechnya upheld it.

"Makhmad-Ali Yansukov, a resident of the Chechen Republic, had been earlier convicted by the Gudermes District Court to five years of imprisonment for kidnapping of two residents, one of whom then disappeared," a source from law enforcement bodies of Chechnya told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to his story, the crime was committed in 1998, when Yansukov worked as a senior investigator of the division of Sharia State Security of Ichkeria (when Chechnya was ruled by Aslan Maskhadov, this was the name of the republic's MIA, - note of the "Caucasian Knot") for the Gudermes District.

"The defendant appealed against the verdict; however, yesterday the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic upheld it," said the source.

According to his story, as established by the investigation, in 1998 Makhmad-Ali Yansukov, acting in a group of other individuals, kidnapped residents of Gudermes named Tazhudinov, who were suspected of killing Muzhidov, deputy head of the GOVD (chief interior division) of Gudermes. With the aim to knock out confessions from the kidnapped persons, Yansukov exposed them to torture and beatings, and then gave out one of the Tazhudinov brothers to relatives of the casualty, who live in the village of Komsomolskoye, Gudermes District. Then, the kidnapped person disappeared; and there is every reason to believe that he was killed by feudists, said the source.

In May last year Makhmad-Ali Yansukov was detained on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan; in September last year he was extradited to Russia and later convicted for his crime.

The position of the convict and his official defence is not reported.