Kabardino-Balkaria: court extends custody of a man with "ironclad" alibi

The Nalchik City Court has considered a petition lodged by the Investigatory Committee under the Russian Prosecutor's Office for Kabardino-Balkaria on extending the custody of Kerim Malkarov, a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, and upheld it: Malkarov's custody was extended till December 2.

The "Caucasian Knot" reported earlier that the accused has a reliable alibi. At the moment of murder he was away from the venue engaged in his labour duties, which is confirmed by plenty of eyewitness evidences and documents.

Advocate Eva Chanieva says that nobody has ever refuted Malkarov's alibi, nevertheless, his custody is extended already for the third time.

"Every time the inspector says that he needs to interrogate Malkarov again and line-up him with Guchapshev, but he has never visited my client at SIZO (pre-trial facility) and made no line-ups," Ms Chanieva has stated.

According to her story, each inspector's decision runs that he expects to get the results of billing (identification of mobile calls made by the accused during that time). She wonders why these billing results are pending for six months already.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has also learnt that Arsen Guchapshev is another accused in this criminal case; he has confessed of false witness against Malkarov given under pressure of the employees of the Criminal Division of the Chegem Interior Department.

The fact of illegal actions of these employees was established by a special check.

The Conclusion of the check ran that Guchapshev was in federal search, therefore, he was detained.

"There are no documents in support of announcing Guchapshev, A. S., into federal search, as revealed in the course of the check, which evidences that he was illegally arrested," the Conclusion runs.

It is also noted that Guchapshev was systematically beaten by employee of Chegem ROVD Chechenov with the aim to knock-out his confession.