Finland tries Shamil Basaev's brother and editor of "Kavkaz-Centre"

Today, a trial has started in Finland on the case of illegal immigration of Chechen natives. One of the defendants in this case is Abdulkhamid Mechiev, 26, who identified himself as the brother of Shamil Basaev, field commander of Chechen militants. The court will announce its verdict on May 9.

The "Caucasian Knot" has already reported that, according to the chairman of the Finnish Antifascist Committee Johan Backman, Mechiev is the brother of Shamil Basaev, liquidated in 2006 in Ingushetia, and for some time was brought up in his family.

According to Mr Backman, Abdulkhamid Mechiev changed his name to Denni Berkat. His relationship to Basaev only became known in the course of the trial, the "Interfax" reports.

However, the prosecutor refutes the information that Mechiev is Basaev's brother.

The other defendant is Mikael Storsjo, editor-in-chief of the website "Kavkaz-Centre", accused by Finnish prosecutors of assisting - since early 2009 - in illegal entrance to Finland of several dozens of Chechens: he bought them flights from Turkey, Georgia and Latvia and helped to accommodate. Among those whom he helped was Denni Berkat, the "Vesti.Ru" reports.

"Mikael Storsjo lust helped the people discriminated in Russia," said the lawyer Ulf Mansson.

Finnish rights defenders believe that Storsjo has a strong lobby in top political circles; and materials of the today's case have a remark: the businessman could be helped by Finnish officials.

Mr Backman said that the trial was run in Swedish -Storsjo's mother tongue that may favourably affect its fate. However, almost at the last moment the key defence witnesses - Heidi Hautala, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament, and Yucca Mullin, former chairman of the Finnish PEN-Club - refused to take part in the trial.

Mikael Storsjo's office is in central Helsinki, where, according to some information, the "Kavkaz-Centre" is working, and some of the servers are located.

"The 'Kavkaz-Centre' is a terrorist organization. Their leader Dokku Umarov was announced as a terrorist by Russia, the USA and the United Nations. We don't understand how this site is still working," said Petri Krohn, chairman of the organization ''Finland without Nazism''.

Earlier, the website was criticized by Pastor Juha Molari. Later he was defrocked for inciting interethnic hatred.

"They are not just immigrants. I can't state for sure that some of them were involved in terror acts, but they are directly related to extremist groupings. In Finland they are treated as fighters for freedom. I treat them as them terrorists, and their website - as extremism ad," said Juha Molari.