In Kabardino-Balkaria, advocates want to appeal against cancellation of juries on "terrorist cases"

The advocates who take part in the criminal case on the events on October 13, 2005, in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, think that the law that cancels the trial by jury on certain articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation violates the rights of their clients and contradicts the Russian Constitution. In this context, they declared their intention to appeal against this law to the Constitutional Court of Russia. The prosecution finds the claims of the defence to be unreasonable.

Today, at the court session at the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria on the events on October 13, 2005, the defendants and their advocates continued putting forward petitions and making statements.

Today, under the petitions, declared by the defendants at the court session on April 9, Judge Galina Gorislavskaya was trying to clarify the defendants' position.

Later, the Chairwoman asked the advocates about their intention to address the Constitutional Court with a complaint on the conformity to the Russian Constitution of the law adopted by the State Duma on amending the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) and excluding criminal cases of anti-state character from consideration by juries. In particular, the Judge wanted to know whether the complaint had been sent to the Constitutional Court and who of the advocates had signed it. The clarification of the issues was caused by the fact that at the last court session advocate Oleg Kelemetov lodged a petition asking the court to send a respective inquiry to the Constitutional Court.

Defendant Zaur Sokmyshev has put forward a petition to change his detention regime and send him "under escort" for examination and treatment to one of medical institutions in Nalchik, because he had suffered from intestinal bleeding for a whole week.

Advocate Timur Lakunov insisted that the prosecution and defence should have equal work conditions at the trial.

On Thursday, April 9, Mr Lakunov left the courtroom in protest, after the Judge refused to immediately consider every declared petition.

"The remedial law forbids consideration of grouped petitions by the court. Every petition should be considered separately and immediately," he said.

Today, Olga Chibinyova, head of the prosecution group, shared her opinion on the declared petitions. According to her version, the CCP amendments on juries have no conflict with the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

"I see no mismatch of the law with the Constitution, therefore, there's no reason to send any inquiry to the Constitutional Court. Advocates are free to do it themselves," said Ms Chibinyova.

She has also disagreed to exclude the evidences obtained by means of physical force from the charges presented to Rasul Kudaev and others, since, as Olga Chibinyova has stated, a check of the complaints was held during the inquiry, and initiation of a criminal case was denied.