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TITLE: Trial of Russian Officer Suspended, Victim's Mother in Hospital |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Agence France Presse |
DATE: March 5, 2001 |
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The trial of Russian army officer Yury Budanov, charged with the brutal murder of a young Chechen girl, was suspended Monday for two weeks after the victim's mother suffered a heart attack. Abdullah Khamzayev, representing the victim's family, said he had asked for the suspension after the girl's mother was rushed to hospital in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. Her illness prevented her from attending the hearings at Rostov-on-Don, national television reported. The trial, which opened last Wednesday and was briefly halted last week after Budanov broke down complaining of heart problems, is to resume on March 20, Khamzayev said. The decision came as passions rose on both sides, Budanov supporters demonstrating outside the courtroom to demand his release and supporters of the girl's family angrily demanding that his trial be transferred to Chechnya. Budanov, a colonel who served with federal Russian forces in Chechnya, is charged with the kidnap and murder of 18-year-old Elza Kungoyeva who disappeared in the village of Tangi, south of the capital Grozny, in March last year. Investigators later found her raped and strangled body. Budanov, 37, has been charged with murder but a second count of rape was dropped. Budanov has admitted murdering the girl but argued that it was an act of rage rather than premeditation. Khamzayev last week called for the trial to be moved to Chechnya or the European Court at Strasbourg on the grounds that it would be impossible to organize a fair trial in Rostov, where the hearing began Wednesday, because of the demonstrations outside the courthouse by Budanov's supporters. "Budanov's lawyers have opposed transferring the trial because they are afraid for his life," he told AFP Monday. Several hundred Chechens demonstrated at a refugee camp at Karabulak, in Ingushetia, where the murdered girl's family lives, to demand justice. They carried banners denouncing Budanov as "a maniac and a criminal" and demanding "a fair trial." The trial, the first of its kind since Moscow launched its 17-month war in Chechnya on October 1, 1999, is seen as a key test of Russia's resolve to end human rights abuses by federal soldiers. END |