Gabibulaeva, detained at "Chermen", asks judge to let her marry defendant in Nalchik attack case

Zalina Gabibulaeva,a resident of Dagestan, who was detainedat the road patrol checkpoint "Chermen" between Ingushetia and North Ossetia, was on her way to Nalchikaiming to get a permit to marriage with Rasul Kudaev, one of the defendants in the caseon events on October 13, 2005. This is stated in Gabibulaeva's application to the chair of the court dealing with this case.

On April 29,two women were detained at the police checkpoint "Chermen"– Zalina Gabibulaeva, born in 1983, a resident of Dagestan, and her friend Zaira Akaeva, born in 1980. The women said that they were going to Nalchik. One of them, according to police databases, was a suicide bomber. When their car was examined, policemen found an object resembling a bomb: a tin of stew meat with protruding wires. Sergey Goncharov,Deputy Chief of North-OssetianPolice of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), later reported that the object found in the car was a ready for use improvised explosive device (IED).

It was also reported that Gabibulaeva, same as her friend, is the widow of a Dagestani militant. She has four children; the youngest is just a year old.

Meanwhile Zalina Gabibulaevaasked in her application addressed to the chair of the court, which is considering the case on the events on October 13, 2005, to allow her to marry the defendant Rasul Kudaev. "I ask you to let me register my marriage to Rasul Kudaev; and for this purpose to let a notary into the SIZO (pre-trial prison) for certifying the Kudaev'ssignature,"runs the application.

"Earlier, Zalina Gabibulaeva had entered the Muslim marriage – nikyah – with Rasul Kudaev. On April 24, she applied to the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria asking to let her to register an official marriage toKudaev. She was on the way here to get an answer to her application,"Fatima Tekaeva, Rasul Kudaev's mother,told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Ms Tekaeva explained that Zalina Gabibulaeva and Rasul Kudaev got acquainted by correspondence. She doubted that the girl could carry a bomb in the car, knowing about how many checkpoints she would have to pass on her way from Makhachkala toNalchik.

On April 30,Ruslan Khadjiev, an advocate fromNalchik, went to North Ossetia for rendering legal aid to Gabibulaeva; however, he failed to locate the detainees.

"All the law enforcement bodies, where I dropped, answered that the girls had not been brought to them," said Khadjiev.

Today it became known that the detainees are kept at the SIZO of Vladikavkaz. In agreement with their relatives, an advocate from Makhachkalagoes to them, the "Caucasian Knot"correspondent reports.

The information that the girls were on their way to Kabardino-Balkaria to relatives of Rasul Kudaev, whom Zalina Gabibulaeva had recently married under the Sharia, was confirmed by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

On May 2, the HRC "Memorial" was approached by Bege Akaev, Zaira Akaeva's father,with a written application saying that he had learned from television news about detention of his daughter. He claims that on April 29 he received a call from an unknown number, but it was quickly disconnected. He called back and Zaira answered. She told her father that the IED had been planted on them. After that, Zaira called her sister Zulfiya Akaeva and asked for help in finding an advocate.

According to the HRC "Memorial", on May 1, Akaeva's relatives went to pick up Zaira's belongings to the apartment, where she lived with Zalina Gabibulaeva. Near the apartment they met four men in civilian clothes, who presented themselves as employees of public utilities. According to Bege Akaev, they checked his documents and invited him into the car, where he was informed that the house should be searched; therefore, they needed the presence of the hosts. With the permission of Gabibulaeva'srelatives, who came to the place, the entrance door was broken, and the house was searched. The agents found nothing illegal, signed a protocol and left, runs Bege Akaev's application.