News

The Georgian Commission on Conditional Early Relief (CER) has considered 40 CER applications from prisoners and decided to satisfy 35 of them.

During a special operation law enforcement bodies in Ingushetia identified the body of Yusup Buzurtanov, personal physician of the leader of Chechen gunmen Dokku Umarov among the killed. There was also a woman among them.

In the duration of the week from March, 21, till March, 27, no less than seven people were killed, four wounded and one person kidnapped in armed confrontations in Northern Caucasus. These are figures from "Caucasian Knot's" calculation based on its own materials and other open sources.

Investigative bodies of Ingushetia are investigating a high-profile corruption case, its figurant is Inna Malsagova, ex-Minister of Public Health of the republic who is suspected of grave abuse of authority in process of procurement of medical equipment.

The republic has held a literary contest among students of philological departments dedicated to the local head Ramzan Kadyrov. In the coming days it will be summed up, and the winners will be rewarded.

Today at 1 p.m. the Magistrate Court of Precinct No. 4 of the Sovietskiy District of Astrakhan was to hold another session on the case of journalist Oleg Teplischev, accused of beating Deputy from the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party Rifkat Shabanov. However, the session was postponed because the defendant was hospitalized.

One of the men shot dead this morning in the Sunzha District of Ingushetia has been identified, according to power agents, as Ibragim Syroev, an active member of the underground. Also, power agents have reported that the casualties had bomb-triggering devices on them.

The persons involved in explosions in Moscow metro in 2010 have been liquidated; and the investigation of the case is in deadlock, Andrei Soldatov, editor-in-chief of the website "Agentura.Ru", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. Ruslan Kurbanov, a political scientist, agrees that over the past year no coherent picture of what happened at the Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations has been presented.

The fact that a large-scale special operation against militants, which was held on March 28, was being prepared in the Sunzha District of Ingushetia, was a secret for local law enforcers. According to relatives of the brothers Ilez and Islam Yandiev, detained during the operation, power agents planted ammunition, when they searched their house. According to law enforcers, the arrested brothers were not only involved in the explosion at the "Domodedovo" Airport, but were also preparing a new terror act.

Strong winds in Kuban (Krasnodar Territory) left hospitals, kindergartens and schools without roofs; in Ingushetia, opposition Khazbiev, sentenced to administrative arrest, was released after Evkurov's interference; in central Yerevan public set up a tent for Ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, who is on hunger strike for the second week, - look these and other events in the review of the week of March 21-27, 2011, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Under the outcomes of the 2010 all-Russian census, about 90 long-livers (aged 100 and more) live in Kabardino-Balkaria, said Larissa Chelysheva, head of the census division of the "Kabbalkstat" (Department for Statistics of Kabardino-Balkaria).

A number of NGOs have held an action in Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi with a demand to release the opposition activists, who spoke in support of Georgian prisoners and were detained on March 25.

As stated by Olga Petkevich, a resident of the village of Leninskiy, Matveyev-Kurgan District of Rostov Region, the principal of the village school and agents of the local ROVD (District Interior Division) questioned her minor children at home, when there were no parents. In her opinion, the reason for interrogation could be in the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses, which she has started confessing recently. On the other hand, the inspector on minors' matters said that the check was organized, because the children often miss classes at school.

At the Moscow City Court, where the murder case of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova is considered, prosecutors have released the bugging record, made in the flat leased by the defendants shortly before their detention. They discussed their impressive arsenal - numerous pistols and submachine guns, and the course of investigation into the murders of Markelov and Baburova.

Today, after 16 days of hunger strike, Raffi Ovannisyan, leader of the Armenian oppositional "Heritage" Party stopped his protest action. The politician said that now he intends to continue his struggle for realization of his demands by other methods.

Two brothers, Islam and Ilez Yandiev detained in Ingushetia, suspected of involvement in the act of terror in the Moscow airport "Domodedovo" are currently in Vladikavkaz.

None of the gunmen of Kabardino-Balkaria has yet expressed a desire to go to law enforcement agencies as self-reported criminals in response to a call of a group of residents of Baksan district to lay down arms of their own free will.

Ahmat Kagermanov representing the Kagermanovs clan in Moscow states that the incident which took place on February, 28, in Tverskaya street had no connection with the creative work of young Chechen writer Arslan Khasavov.

Baku hosted a forum in support of the freedom of the press. Representatives of the free press and the civil society of Azerbaijan demanded to find and punish the perpetrators of the attack on the observer of the "Azadlyg" (Freedom) newspaper Seimur Khaziev.

Vakha Chapanov, head of the Information-Analytical Agency "Maximum", was summoned on 24 March to the Prosecutor's Office of Ingushetia. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent learnt about it from Mr Chapanov himself.