Human rights activists criticize the verdict against Kazanchev and Batyrov
The testimonies of secret witnesses against Aslanbek Kazanchev and Anzor Batyrov from Kabardino-Balkaria literally repeat the testimonies from other cases of attacks on Pskov paratroopers in Chechnya.
As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, residents of Kabardino-Balkaria Anzor Batyrov, Aslanbek Kazanchev and Taimuraz Nakusov were detained in May 2023 in Baksan, Chegem and the village of Nartan in the Chegem district. They were accused of involvement in the militant attack on Pskov paratroopers in Chechnya in 2000. In July 2024, the case was sent to court. Aslanbek Kazanchev and Anzor Batyrov received 17 and 14 years in prison, respectively, and Taimuraz Nakusov, who entered into a pre-trial agreement, was sentenced to 11.5 years in prison.
On the night of March 1, 2000, fighters from the sixth company of the 104th regiment of the 76th Pskov Guards Airborne Division entered into battle in Chechnya with a large detachment of Shamil Basayev and Khattab. The company held off the onslaught of about 2,000 militants for about a day, who were trying to break out of the encirclement. Then 84 of the 90 servicemen died, 370 militants were killed. Among the reasons for the tragedy, analysts name corruption and incompetence of the command and officers, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "Battle for Height 776: How the Pskov paratroopers died".
Aslanbek Kazanchev and Anzor Batyrov pleaded not guilty in the case of the attack on the Pskov paratroopers in Chechnya. Both men had previously served sentences for participating in an illegal armed group: Kazanchev was sentenced to two and a half years in 2006, and Batyrov to five years in 2000, according to a publication by the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center (listed by the Russian Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent) on August 4.
Testimony against Kazanchev and Batyrov was given by the third defendant in the case, Taimuraz Nakusov, who cooperated with the investigation. In court, he stated that Kazanchev and Batyrov had joined the so-called “Kabardian jamaat” with him. Nakusov admitted that he himself had taken part in the attack on the Pskov paratroopers, but could not remember whether Kazanchev and Batyrov had taken part in the battle. The case also includes testimony from three secret witnesses, allegedly former militants, against Kazanchev and Batyrov.
Anzor Batyrov claims that in 1999-2000 he was permanently in Nalchik and worked as a loader. Aslanbek Kazanchev admits that at the end of July 1999 he came to Chechnya with an acquaintance for military training at a training center led by Basayev and Khattab in Urus-Martan. In December 1999, he left this center along with about a hundred other fighters, mainly Chechens, and from February 29 to March 1, 2000, he was 3-4 km from the site of a clash between militants and Pskov paratroopers, without taking part in it. Kazanchev insists that he has never used weapons against Russian soldiers.
Investigators are fabricating cases against the alleged participants in the clash with the Pskov paratroopers, using a list of militants who surrendered on March 5, 2000, near the village of Selmentauzen. This list, compiled from the words of those who surrendered themselves, initially contained 69 people, more than half of whom were shot by federal soldiers the next day in the village of Duts-Khutor. According to human rights activists, the security forces regularly add new names to that classified list.
“Of those thirty survivors, some died later - but more than forty people who allegedly surrendered then have already been convicted. The evidence base in all these fabricated cases is the testimony of secret witnesses, and they literally migrate from one case to another, changing the names of the witnesses. Often, this testimony is absurd,” said a representative of the human rights organization.
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