News

The advocates of the natives of Chechnya Timirlan Tsatsaev and Aslan Kautarov, accused of assaulting a Moscow policeman, said they would appeal against the court's ruling to extend the detention of their clients. According to advocates, until now, investigators have not checked the defendants' alibi.

Alexander Boichenko, an advocate of the builder Mardiros Demerchyan has filed an appeal complaint against the verdict of the Adler District Court, which found his client guilty of false denunciation.

Elshad Babaev, who was serving his term in a colony near Baku, died as a result of torture; and his body has numerous injuries, said his sister. The Penitentiary Service refutes this information; however, Elchin Bekhbudov, the head of the Azerbaijani Committee against Torture, said that the colony, where Babaev died, is known for its extremely harsh custody conditions.

The suspects of committing a robbery of the house of Khalid Tsechoev, the head of the Ingush village of Psedakh are being established, but the police have already found the car, which they used to escape from the venue. During the robbery over 1.4 million roubles were stolen, Tsechoev told himself.

At the session on the lawsuit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic to the athlete Murad Amriev, who stated that he had been kidnapped and tortured by the police in Grozny, The MIA's spokesman petitioned to attract the Committee against Torture as a respondent.

After the meeting with Gadji Aidiev, the head of the administration of the Novolak District of Dagestan, on December 24, the hunger-strikers, who demand to solve their land problem, decided to suspend their protest action.

Today in the morning, in the Sunzha District of Chechnya, an unidentified person opened fire at policemen: a special-force agent was wounded. The attacker was shot dead by response fire and was pre-identified as a member of the Makhauri grouping. The district was put under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime.

Today, the Astrakhan Regional Court has reduced the prison term of the temporarily dismissed Astrakhan Mayor Mikhail Stolyarov, convicted of bribery, from 10 to 9 years.

Today, Grozny reopens the House of Press, which was damaged during the special operation against militants on December 4. Journalists of "Molodyozhnaya Smena" (Youth Generation) have already returned to their offices in the building; the remaining tenants plan to do in the coming days, said a source from the Grozny administration. The marketplace "Berkat" has partially resumed its work.

Residents of the Staropromyslovskiy District of Grozny have reported that in the evening on December 24 law enforcers checked their passports. A source from the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) said that the checks are of preventive pre-holiday character. Meanwhile, residents of Grozny fear of a new militants' attack.

For the period of the New Year holidays, the alpine resorts of the Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi have increased the cost of ski passes by an average of 30-40%. The press service of the ski resort "Roza Khutor", which will open its slopes on December 26, has attributed their higher prices to a large inflow of tourists.

The Attorney Office of the United States has disagreed with the petition lodged by the advocates of the ethnic Chechen Johar Tsarnaev, who is accused of organizing the terror act at the Boston Marathon, to postpone the trial until September 2015.

Law enforcement officers conducted searches of houses in the village of Bayram, Khasavyurt District, and detained a local resident Magomed Sulaev. Earlier Sulaev reported being subjected to torture by the police. During the day his relatives could not locate him, said the lawyer Sapiyat Magomedova.

Today, the student Magomed Aliev, accused of promoting terrorism, was moved from the hospital to the SIZO (pre-trial prison) of Stavropol, the lawyer Alieva told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. His relatives fear that his health condition may worsen.

In Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan, a teacher of the Zovasar Rural School, who protested against the accumulative pension system, has won a lawsuit against his principal.

Today, the Baku Court of Appeal (BCA) has dismissed the appeal complaint lodged by the journalist Parviz Gashimli against his conviction.

Levon Airapetyan, a businessmen and notable member of the Armenian Diaspora in Russia, who is kept under home arrest in Moscow as a figurant in the "Bashneft" case, was urgently hospitalized.

The verdict to figurants in the case of the attack on Nalchik was a result of torture and a miscarriage of justice, says the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI). Human Rights Watch (HRW) have accused Russian authorities of their refusal to investigate the evidence of facts of torture.

Magomed Karsamov, a native of the Chechen Republic, has disappeared under unclear circumstances in Moscow. According to his relatives, the young man was kidnapped by law enforcers

The residents of the Volgograd Region, who suffered during the last year's terror acts, will receive compensations for their lost property. The Russian government has decided to allocate 2,047,000 roubles for the purpose.