Military guilty of death of woman trialled in Chechnya

On August 21, the Garrison Military Court of the City of Grozny started another trial of the case of Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Korgun, for whose guilt a local woman-resident was killed and two more women were heavily wounded.

On March 24, 2007, the lieutenant colonel together with a group of scouts held "actions" near the Urdyukhoy village, the Shatoy District. In the forest, the militaries came across three local women-residents who were gathering ramson, and opened fire on them from their automatic fire-arms. Later, the servicemen explained their actions by the fact that they had taken the three unarmed women for a group of militants.

In the opinion of a member of one of the local human rights organizations, in this case, as well as in a lot of other ones, the officials of the military prosecutor's office, who were investigating this case, strained all their efforts to drive Mr Korgun and his subordinates out of criminal liability:

"First of all, one of the suffered women, Zalpa Mutakova, is now considered to be a witness in the case. Secondly, the subordinates of the lieutenant colonel have also been transferred into the category of 'witnesses,' although they should actually be defendants. Besides, the officer himself is now charged only of negligent performance of his duties. One might think that Korgun and his subordinates had committed some slight offence, not a murder of an armless woman."

According to the human rights activist, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Korgun has pled guilty of "negligence."