Presentation of a book about Chechen woman convicted on terrorism charges to take place in Moscow

On April 27, the Moscow Cultural Centre "Pokrovskie Vorota" will host a book presentation, written by Zoya Svetova, a Russian human rights activist, a publicist and journalist, about the trials of the scientist Igor Sutyagin, convicted as a spy, and of the Chechen woman Zara Murtazalieva, convicted for terrorism.

"Finding Innocent Guilty" is a documentary novel by journalist Zoya Svetova, in which she shows, taking two resonant trials as the examples - of Igor Sutyagin, a scientist accused of espionage, and of Zara Murtazalieva, a Chechen woman, accused of terrorism, what the today's Russian justice looks like. According to the author, no independent judiciary exists in Russia, while the authorities make use of the court as a tool for achieving their goals.

Zara Murtazalieva, 27, has been in prison for six years already. On January 17, 2005, the Moscow City Court sentenced her to 9 years of imprisonment in a general security colony after finding her guilty of preparing a terror act and involvement of other individuals in its commission. Besides, she was found her guilty of illegal possession and purchase of explosives. Later the Supreme Court reduced her term by six months. In October 2008, the Zubovo-Polyanskiy District Court rejected the woman's CER (conditional early relief), citing the fact that she had not pled guilty.

In September 2005, lawyer Vladimir Suvorov submitted Zara Murtazalieva's case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). He then told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that he had faced all sorts of obstacles to his lodging the case to the ECtHR - for example, for a whole month he could not get a proxy from Murtazalieva on the right to file the claim.

After a sudden death of Vladimir Suvorov, now Murtazalieva's interests are presented at the ECtHR by Kirill Koroteev, an employee of the HRC "Memorial".

Earlier, Russian and Chechen rights defenders had repeatedly pointed to the illogical nature of the investigation into Murtazalieva's case, assuming that it was fabricated. Ramzan Kadyrov, when yet Prime Minister of Chechnya, promised to initiate a revision of the criminal case against this woman.

In her recent interview to the portal HRO.ORG, Zoya Svetova said she had dedicated her book to Anna Politkovskaya. It has a storyline "Anna Politkovskaya vs. Ramzan Kadyrov", and even a fragment of Politkovskaya's article, "Central Forward from Tsentoroy" about the meeting with the President of Chechnya, where Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Grozny office of the HRC "Memorial", was also present; Natalia was assassinated in July 2009.

At the trial dealing with accusation of Oleg Orlov, chairman of the board of the HRC "Memorial", of slandering Ramzan Kadyrov, that meeting was described by Tatiana Lokshina, deputy director of the Moscow office of the Human Rights Watch. According to her story, Estemirova literally stood between Anna Politkovskaya and Ramzan Kadyrov, when the latter raised his hand to strike the journalist. This scene is described in the book.

"In my book, only one hero bears his real name: it's Ramzan Kadyrov. I gave other names to other characters. Everything that is written about Kadyrov took place in reality. I actually visited him in Grozny, when I worked for the French television," said Svetova.

"Then I came across other cases, where witnesses' evidences and examination results were fabricated to suit the accusation, and innocent people were imprisoned for long terms. From different people I heard similar figures: Russian prisons and penal colonies keep 20-30 percent of innocent persons. The book has a story of Fatima Mukhadieva based on the real history of Zara Murtazalieva, who had no relation to the terrorist underground, but was accused of preparing a terror act and sentenced to 9 years in prison. She is still there; although I'm 100 percent sure of her innocence. Unfortunately, all the efforts of human rights defenders towards Murtazalieva's acquittal or, at least, her release under CER had no success," Zoya Svetova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.