News

The Supreme Court (SC) of Kabardino-Balkaria has refused to satisfy the advocates' petitions on sending a request to the Constitutional Court of Russia on conformity of the amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP), adopted by the State Duma and stipulating exclusion of cases having anti-state character from jurisdiction of juries, to Russian Constitution. The court decided that any citizen of the country, including advocates, may send such request to the Constitutional Court by his or her own.

The reason of the attack on Abdullagun Aliev, 49, and his son Adam, 19, residents of Ekazhevo village of Nazran District, committed by unidentified persons on April 12 in their village could be their dealing with alcohol drinks, as local residents explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On March 13, the opposition in Georgia declared a "tougher struggle"; however, it has no clear plan of further actions and no unified opinion about future strategy of confronting the authorities. This is the opinion of Emil Adelkhanov, deputy chairman of the Board of the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development.

The explosion, which happened on April 13 in Mizur village in North Ossetia, as a result of which one young man died and seven more wounded, was caused by an explosive made by the victims themselves, as Herman Shtadler, Public Prosecutor of North Ossetia, said to journalists today.

The MIA of the Republic of South Ossetia (RSO) asserts that detention of the members of "People's Party" on April 10 in the Party's office had nothing to do with their political activity. The letter of the MIA's press service that arrived to the "Caucasian Knot" office says that the neighbours living close to the Party's office asked law enforcers to make a check.

On April 14, one of the defendants in the "Case of Seven", political prisoner Shant Arutyunyan will be transferred from the psychiatric hospital "Nubarashen" to the corrective establishment named "Vardashen". The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed about it by human rights defender Mikael Danielyan, who confirmed the statements of Arutyunyan and his relatives about very poor conditions in "Nubarashen" hospital.

On April 12, in the south of Chechnya, in the mountain Shatoy District, a contract soldier of the federal forces shot dead an officer and two soldiers, also on contract service, then, he tried to commit suicide. He was hospitalized in a grave condition.

On April 11 in Krasnodar, opposite the building of the territorial administration, a one-person picket was held to cancel the curfew for minors in force in the Krasnodar Territory for more than 8 months.

Today, Ella Kesaeva, leader of the All-Russian Public Organization "Voice of Beslan", sent an application to the Beslan tax service asking to explain why the tragedy victims were ordered to pay 13 percent of the cost of their children's training in a lyceum near Moscow.

The process of bringing the forced migrants from Chechnya, who are temporarily living in the territory of Ingushetia, back to their homeland is carried out with violation of human rights. People are returned by deceit, blackmail and threats. This is the opinion of Aslambek Apaev, expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) for Northern Caucasus and the head of the Committee in defence of forced migrants' rights.

In the Malgobek District of Ingushetia, four young men aged 20-25 disappeared in one day in unclear circumstances.

The expression - "war of nerves" - used by both parties of confrontation in Georgia is quite topical: at night on April 12, the authorities' nerves failed - the only explanation of night "pogroms" on the opposition. This was stated by independent expert Ramaz Sakvarelidze to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The death of Lemka Batyrova, 54, a resident of Chermen village in North Ossetia, on April 7, when militiamen chased the persons suspected of hijacking a car, was caused by a gunshot wound in the breast area, and not by a road accident. This was reported by a source in the Investigatory Department (ID) of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office (ICPO) of the Russian Federation for Ingushetia.

The advocates who take part in the criminal case on the events on October 13, 2005, in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, think that the law that cancels the trial by jury on certain articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation violates the rights of their clients and contradicts the Russian Constitution. In this context, they declared their intention to appeal against this law to the Constitutional Court of Russia. The prosecution finds the claims of the defence to be unreasonable.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) of South Ossetia has reported that today the city of Tskhinvali was shelled from the side of Georgia. There is no data about any victims.

According to Valery Zhukov, head of Department of Highways of the Krasnodar Territory, Sochi still lacks 3 billion roubles to start building the traffic intersections, which are parts of the construction programme of Olympic objects and development of the city as a mountain-climate resort.

Today in Georgia, leaders of the opposition held a meeting and decided to suspend their protest actions for tomorrow, April 12, the Palm Sunday. However, protest rallies will resume on Monday, April 13.

Today, a destroyer named "Kemalreis" of the Naval Forces of Turkey has dropped anchor in the port of Poti in Georgia for a three-day friendly visit. On April 12-13, it will take part in joint exercises of Georgian frontier guards and Turkish destroyer's crew members.

On April 25, the "Society of Young Turks" will hold a rally in New York under the motto "End of Armenian lie". The organizers have formulated its aim as informing the American public about disagreement with the fact of genocide against Armenians.

At the check point "Nizhni Zaramag", located on the border of Russia with South Ossetia, frontier guards of the Frontier Administration (FA) of Russian FSB for the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania were addressed by a woman-citizen of Georgia, 72, a native of the Gori District, who applied for political asylum.