Defence: figurants in Nalchik attack case did not write appeals to participants of Moscow rallies

The advocates of the defendants in the case of the attack on Nalchik in October 2005 deny any involvement of their clients in the appeal to the participants of protest rallies in Moscow, written on behalf of the defendants.

"The appeal of the defendants in the case of the attack on Nalchik in October 2005 to the participants of protest rallies in Moscow", which is referred to here, asked the organizers of the Moscow protest rallies to voice out the text of the appeal at the rallies.

"We consider ourselves to be prisoners of conscience, because we had been put on the list of rebels not because we had taken up arms, but because our religious views were considered by those in power in Kabardino-Balkaria and Russia as harmful," the appeal says. "For years, we were called Wahhabis, humiliated, beaten, slighted, and, finally, by using the events in October 2005 as pretext, declared militants and terrorists."

The appeal also supported the demand of rally organizers to release all political prisoners. The authors of the appeal asked to consider them as "participants of the rallies in absentia" and put forward additional demands, including, in particular, "election of judges", "restoration of juries to the extent, in which they existed before 2008", "broad public control over power structures with the right of veto, which public monitors may impose on decision of power bosses" and "complete refusal from the practice of taking whole groups of population into operative treatment only on the basis of their political, religious, ethical or other convictions".

The authors of the appeal also demand to cancel "the so-called extremist legislation, because it is nothing more but a struggle against nonconformity", and believe that "representation in power can be formed not only on the principle of uniting people on the basis of political ideologies", and stand "for creation of religious parties".

However, the lawyers and relatives of the defendants deny their involvement in the above text. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Farida Tuganova, who is representing the interests of six defendants in the Nalchik attack case, which happened on October 13, 2005, her clients had nothing to do with the appeal.

Lawyers Farida Tuganova and Oleg Kelemetov are representing the interests of Anuar Goov, Aslanbek Beshtoev, Anzor Mashukov, Eduard Mironov, Azamat Akhkubekov and Khasanbi Khupsergenov. "I spoke with my clients, and they said they had not written and signed this sort of appeal," said Tuganova. In her words, the defendants have no idea about the origin of the text.

The information about non-involvement of the defendants in writing the appeal was confirmed by the lawyer Elizaveta Shak, who represents the interests of Zuber Sozaev, Kaplan Midov and Kazbek Budtuev.

So far, representatives of other defendants in the case refrain from comments.

In their comments to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, defendants' relatives expressed their outrage at the appearance of the appeal and asserted that the defendants in this case were not the authors thereof; and the text of the appeal was not agreed with anyone.

The "Committee of Mothers", where defendants' relatives are members, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told that "in Nalchik nobody wrote that appeal." Its content, according to relatives, only aggravates the defendants' situation, since the case is approaching the verdict. They also disagree with its content and plan to write a refutation.

According to their story, at the next court session the defendants will announce an official refutation of the text of the appeal.