News

Today, on April 19, the court in Yerevan sentenced Samson Khachatryan, an activist of the oppositional Armenian National Congress (ANC), twice European champion and five times champion of the USSR in boxing, was sentenced on charges of violent acts against state officials to one year of conditional imprisonment.

On April, 18, activists of Representative People's Assembly held an action of protest within the framework of a project "Museum of Exposure" near "Rustaveli" metro station in the center of Tbilisi. Information "on the present-day reality in Georgia" and appropriation of state property by officials was presented on special stands.

Magomed Adalaev, one of the gunmen killed on April, 18, during a special operation near the settlement of Tashkapur, Levashi district of Dagestan, turned out to be a cousin of Mariam Sharipova who exploded herself in "Lubianka" metro station of Moscow in March, 2010. A source in one of the power ministries reported that the special operation in Tashkapur had been planned based on the information received about a visit of Israpil Valijanov, one of the leaders of Dagestani underground, to the settlement.

The authorities of Stavropol will allot about 250 thousand rubles on drug testing at schools of the city. Testing will be voluntary.

At today's court session on the criminal case on slander initiated against Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial", Judge Karina Morozova from the judicial precinct No. 363 of the Moscow district of Khamovniki, has satisfied the petition lodged by Andrei Krasnenkov, representative of the suffered party, to conduct interrogation of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov in the form of a videoconference on April 28.

As reported by the Information Centre of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), one of the suspected militants, liquidated today in the course of a special operation in Dagestan, was identified as Magomed Adalaev.

The Internet medium "Caucasian Knot" begins publishing SMS-messages received from its readers by means of its SMS-service, in a special section of its Forum.

At about midday, at the exit from Magas, the service car of Yusup Kostoev, a Deputy of the People's Assembly of the Republic of Ingushetia, was stopped. Three men armed with submachine guns, one of them in mask, without presenting themselves, asked Kostoev to show documents. Then they fled with the documents on his car.

In Moscow, an officer of one of special police units, after a traffic conflict, beat to death an elderly taxi driver, a native of Azerbaijan. Eyewitnesses of the incident state that the casualty had no knife, as had been earlier claimed by the policeman.

The three Swedish journalists were detained in Baku on Sunday, April 17, when they watched the protest of the opposition. The Azerbaijani State Migration Service told them that they had violated the visa regime.

Today, at the trial about the attack on Nalchik, undertaken on October 13, 2001, the defendant Azamat Akhkubekov announced a statement that a group of defendants was ready to go on hunger strike as of tomorrow in protest against removal by the SIZO administration of the refrigerators and TV-sets, which had been bought by inmates' relatives. The statement was signed by 24 defendants.

Today, the Moscow City Court has dismissed a petition to dissolve the jury, which considers the murder case of lawyer Stanislav Markelov. The jurors retired to the jury room for passing the verdict on the case.

On April, 17, eighteen mothers in Volgograd who had participated in a three-day hunger strike demanding free enrollment of their children in kindergartens have stopped their action of protest. The authorities of the region formed a working group for solving the problem.

Judge Alexander Zamashnyuk, chairing the trial on the murders of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, has dismissed the petition lodged by Alexei Nikulochkin, defendants' advocate, on judge disqualification. The judge explained his decision by saying that a judge challenge should be petitioned prior to formation of the jury.

Azerbaijani police detained 65 participants of an unauthorized action in Baku which had been planned by a number of oppositional parties, law enforcement bodies of Azerbaijan report.

According to official data from the web-site of Astrakhan regional Government, Alexander Zhilkin, Governor of Astrakhan region, earned one and a half million rubles last year.

In Sochi, four fixed-route taxi drivers who held strike against free transportation of privileged passengers were subjected to administrative arrest.

Today, Egle Kusaite, a citizen of Lithuania, accused of preparing a terror act in the territory of Russia, has filed a lawsuit with a demand to stop tapping her telephone conversations.

Vitaly Ivanov, one of those accused of murdering 12 persons in the village of Kuschevskaya, Krasnodar Territory, has confessed that in September 2003 he killed two entrepreneurs, acting together with his accomplice.

On April 15, the Russian Theatre of Makhachkala hosted an official presentation of the world's first multilingual social network Godudu.com.