Court dismissed complaint of soldier from North Ossetia accused of hazing

On September 2, the Pre-Volga District Military Court considered the cassation complaint lodged by Ruslan Kibirov, a native of North Ossetia, against the verdict of the Saratov Garrison Court.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Kibirov had been convicted - within a group of five other soldiers, natives from North Ossetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria - under Articles 335 (hazing) and 263 (extortion) of the Russian Criminal Code on charges of abuse of their comrades-in-arms and sentenced to three years in prison. The defendants were also charged of shaving up the letters making the word "Kavkaz" on heads of other soldiers. They decided to appeal against their verdict at the higher instance.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed by Ilya Kazimirenko, the official spokesman of the Pre-Volga District Military Court, the court rejected Kibirov's petition and upheld the sentence.

Ruslan Gadjigereev, Kibirov's advocate, doubts the fairness of the sentence. He claims that at least one volume of the case files was falsified. "Many evidences disappeared and in fact the case was built on rather contradictory evidences of the victims," said the lawyer. Mr Gadjigereev explains that the rest of the convicts had failed to lodge their cassation complaints because of difficult financial situation of their families and that they had "lost trust for the justice."