Contract soldier from Adygea convicted of evading service

A court in Maykop (the capital of Adygea) has sentenced a contract military serviceman to six years in jail, finding him guilty of evading service. The appellate court has upheld the verdict unchanged.

According to investigators, Edalet Amrakhov was absent from his military unit intermittently for about 2.5 months. However, every time he returned to the unit himself, and explained his absence from service by the fact that he needed to go to Dagestan for family reasons.

The Maykop Garrison Military Court has found Amrakhov guilty of evading military service, the "Kavkaz.Realii"* project reports.

Amrakhov's advocate has appealed against the verdict at the Southern District Military Court. He asked the court to mitigate the sentence because his client had performed "special tasks of military service", has a child, and also because the commander had failed to take measures to search for his subordinate.

The "Caucasian Knot" has also reported that Maxim Tsurkan, another serviceman from Adygea, was sentenced to five years and five months of freedom deprivation for evading his service. The appellate instance reduced his sentence by a month.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.