19:21, 3 June 2008

Supreme Court of Russia upholds the verdict to North Ossetian kidnappers

Today, the Supreme Court of Russia has upheld the guilty verdict to three participants of the criminal grouping who kidnapped people in North Ossetia, in spite of the fact that the victims in case insisted on cancelling the verdict.

On February 1, the Supreme Court of North Ossetia sentenced Ingushes Amerkhan Mankiev, Magomed Gazgireev and Ruslan Oligov to 9, 11 and 20 years of strict custody colony respectively.
In their cassation complaints, the convicts and their defence asked to cancel the guilty verdict and to stop the criminal case or send it to a new consideration.

The figurants of the case found the verdict to be unfair, illegal and unjustified. The victims in case also demanded to cancel the verdict, since they doubt that they were kidnapped by the defendants.

The Court, however, has upheld the stand of the prosecutor's office, which asked to leave the guilty verdict unchanged. So far, only the resolutive part of the decision was announced, while the motives of the Court remain unknown, the RIA "Novosti" reports.

Thus, as of today the verdict to Mankiev, Gazgireev and Oligov has come into force.