Supreme Court approves 13 years of imprisonment for Chechnya natives

Today, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has upheld the guilty verdict to two natives of Chechnya - Bislan Badalov and Hasambek Ahmetkhanov - and their accomplices condemned by the Tver Regional Court for kidnapping and extortion. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent learnt about it from Bislan Badalov's brother - well-known Chechen human rights activist Ruslan Badalov.

The defence intends to appeal against the verdict to the Presidium of the Supreme Court and to the Chairman of the Court. In early April, also with the help of the Centre to Promote International Defence, a complaint was filed to the European court for Human Rights against Bislan Badalov's unreasonably long term of custody.

In his concluding speech advocate Abusupyan Gaitaev has stated that in the process of litigation quite enough evidences were presented on his client's innocence of the indicted crimes. Thus, according to his version, the charge of kidnapping was obviously inconsistent, since even the victims did not state it in their presentations.

The defender recognizes only that Bislan Badalov can be charged under Article 330 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("arbitrariness"). Besides, Mr Gaitaev thinks that Badalov's "arbitrariness" was caused by inactivity of the law enforcement bodies who failed to start searching the criminals who had tried to kill him.