A. Cherkasov: military courts cover up crimes in Chechnya

Nurdi Nukhazhiev, Chechen ombudsman, has made a statement today that the inactivity of military courts is the cause of repeated cases of execution by militaries of peaceful residents of Chechnya. Making his comments on the incident in the Urdyukhoi village, he has noted that should Ulman, Arakcheev and Khudyakov had been fairly punished, the rest would not have dared to open fire at peaceful people.

How deep has impunity taken root in the system of military justice of Russia, this was the topic of conversation of the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" with Alexander Cherkasov, member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial."

"Same as in the "Ulman's case," in this case we see that in the areas, which have no special legal regulation and where the state of emergency was not announced, in fact the war conditions persist. And not just the war, but the sort of war, where everything is permitted and there is no concept of a war crime. This refers to military regulations, orders, and the general commands issued by the command," Mr. Cherkasov has stated.

"If we look into statistics of crimes, statistics of excited criminal cases, and statistics of the cases within the competence of the Military Office of Public Prosecutor, statistics of the cases that have reached the courts and of the verdicts, we can see that here we have a system of organized impunity, in which the courts are in no case the worst of the stages," the human rights activist has asserted.