News

On Friday, April 11, the North-Caucasian Military District Court began preliminary hearings on the case of Said Amirov, temporarily dismissed Mayor of Makhachkala, and his nephew Yusup Djaparov, the former Deputy Mayor of Kaspiysk, said Alyona Katskalo, the court press secretary. According to her story, the trial is held behind closed doors.

The Sochi police had ruled not to open a criminal case on Pussy Riot members about beating them by Cossacks on February 19. The ruling was then appealed against by the prosecutor's office; and on April 12, the Sochi UVD (Interior Department) should make another decision on the matter, the lawyer Alexander Popkov has reported.

Last night, a madrassa teacher, who was also the Imam of the mosque, was killed in the Kizilyurt District of Dagestan was killed, a source from the local MIA has reported. According to investigators, two masked attackers committed the murder. Law enforcers do not exclude that the Imam's professional activities could cause the murder.

On April 8, Alexander Petin, a Deputy of the Maikop District Soviet, was found guilty of promoting Nazi symbols and fined by 2000 roubles, said Andrei Scryabin, the Judge Assistant of the Maikop District Court. His defence asserts that it was not a swastika, but some construction drawing made on the wall of the house.

The Makhachkala Lenin District Court has held its first session of the trial on the murder of journalist Abdulmalik Akhmedilov. The defendant Murad Shuaibov has filed a motion asking to return his the criminal case to the prosecutor's office in order to add a number of documents to the case files – these documents had been earlier there, but were withdrawn later, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

On Thursday, the village of Nor-Maraga of the Martakert District of Nagorno-Karabakh hosted a mourning procession, a rally and a ceremony of laying flowers in memory of the victims of the tragic events of 1992 in the village of Maraga. The rally voiced calls to punish the persons responsible for the destruction of the village and massacre of its inhabitants.

On Thursday, in North Ossetia, the police detained Aliskhan Gurazhev and Mustafa Barkinkhoev, residents of the village of Mayskoe of the Prigorodny District. About one hundred people blocked the federal highway "Kavkaz", demanding the release the detainees. This was reported by a brother of one of the detainees.

At the trial held at the Moscow City Court on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, Sergey Khadjikurbanov a former employee of the RUBOP (Department to Combat Organized Crime), said that he had been slandered by Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a former lieutenant colonel, already convicted on this case.

The operation to "neutralize" Doku Umarov was conducted in late 2013, said Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB.

At the hearing of his case, the Rostov journalist and blogger Sergey Reznik complained about the custody conditions at the SIZO (pre-trial prison) and asked to change it for home arrest; but the court denied the motion.

On April 15, the Zamoskvorechye Court of Moscow is to hold the next court hearing to consider the claim filed by the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" against the prosecutors' demand to get registered as a foreign agent.

Azerbaijan starts a judicial investigation into the criminal case against Anar Mamedli, the head of the Centre for Election Monitoring and Democracy Training (CEMDT), and his two colleagues. The case will be considered in the Baku Court of Grave Crimes by judge panel chaired by Judge Rauf Aliev.

In Chechnya, Christian cemeteries have been properly cleaned for the upcoming celebration of the Orthodox Easter, which will be held on April 20. This was reported by officials from the Chechen Ministry on National Policy, External Relations, Press and Information.

Alvi Abdurakhmanov, a resident of Chechnya, who was detained by law enforcers after his acquittal in court, is held in Grozny in one of the units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). This was reported by his family members.

The advocates of those accused of committing crimes in the territory of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, including the terror act in the marketplace of Vladikavkaz in 2010, expressed their disagreement with the verdict passed by the North-Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don and announced their intention to appeal against it.

Russia had had more information about the intentions of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a native of Chechnya and one of the organizers of the terror act during the marathon run in the US city of Boston, but did not share it with the FBI, says the inspectors' report on the check of the actions of the CIA to prevent the terror act.

In Armenia, activists of the group DEM.AM intend to scale up protests, should the government fail to amend the new pension law.

The Vladimir Putin's decision to include Ramzan Kadyrov into the Presidium of the Russian State Council was expected. This opinion was expressed by Professor Alexei Malashenko from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin.

The defence of the public organization "Don Women's Union" has denied in the court the prosecutors' claims on recognizing the organization as a foreign agent, said the defence lawyers. According to their version, three witnesses were questioned at the session on April 7.

The North-Caucasian District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don has sentenced a group of defendants, accused of crimes committed in the territory of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, including the terror act in the marketplace in Vladikavkaz.