Officer guilty of Chechen woman's death sentenced to three years of conditional imprisonment

On February 7, the Grozny Garrison Military Court sentenced Alexei Korgun, Lieutenant Colonel of Internal Troops of the Russian MIA, guilty of the death of a woman-resident of the Shatoy District of Chechnya, to three years of conditional imprisonment.

The officer was accused under Article 293 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (RF) "Negligence".

On March 24, 2007, soldiers from a reconnaissance sub-unit of the Internal Troops of the Russian MIA under command of Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Korgun opened fire on three women-local residents who were gathering ramson in a large forest near Urdyukhoi village, Shatoi District. Later, the militaries declared that they had opened fire as took the women for militants.

As a result of the shelling, Khaldat Mutakova, a teacher of the local school, was shot dead, and her sister Zalpa Mutakova and Zaira Kasumova were heavily wounded. The latter became invalid from the caused injury.

A relative of one of the suffered women who was present at the trial told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that Alexei Korgun had completely admitted his guilt and asked pardon from the relatives of the perished woman and those wounded ones.

"The verdict to Korgun, in my opinion, is very lenient; nevertheless, I think he is really distressed with what had happened then. In any case, I've never heard before any of Russian militaries jailed for similar crimes ask pardon from victims or relatives," the interlocutor said.