News

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" believes that the evidential base in the case about the militants' attack on power structures of Kabardino-Balkaria on October 13, 2005, is invalid, and demands to stop the criminal case against Kazbek Budtuev and release him from custody. This is stated in the message of the Centre, which had provided an advocate to defend Kazbek Budtuev and Rasul Kudaev.

The video report, in which the attempter on Isa Yamadaev names President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov to be the customer of the crime is a provocation. This was stated by Andrei Krasnenkov, Mr Kadyrov's advocate.

Tonight in Makhachkala, in the Imam Shamil Avenue, two explosions were triggered one after another. Several persons were wounded; one man lost his legs torn off by the explosion, as the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports from the place of the incident.

A journalist from Armenia Ernest Vardanyan is in custody in Tiraspol, the capital of the Transdniestrian Moldavian Republic. He is accused of high treason and espionage in favour of Moldova. These charges assume from 12 to 20 years of imprisonment.

The residents of the Imereti Lowland, whose real estate is subject to alienation, doubt the legality of the actions of the authorities. They believe that the Central Stadium could be constructed without touching their houses and land plots.

On April 20, in central Yerevan, at the building of Georgia's Embassy, a protest action was held by the public organization "Armenian Neo-Conservative Movement", where participants demanded to defend the rights of Armenian residents of the Georgian region Samtskhe-Dzhavakhetiya. The protesters raised the issues of cultural autonomy of the region.

Today in Moscow, in the Taras Shevchenko Quay, about two thousand young Moslems and believers of other confessions rallied to hold a meeting-march.

Saiv Toshkhoev, a resident of Ingushetia, has stated, with reference to his brother Mikhail and his fellow countryman Islam Tsechoev, who serve their terms in the Omsk Region, that prisoners are violently brought to the medical-corrective establishment in Beregovoi settlement of the Omsk Region, where they are tortured.

According to latest information, six militiamen suffered in the morning on April 19 as a result of blowing up the car belonging to Beslan Shadiev, acting deputy head for logistics of the MIA of Ingushetia.

Downpours became the reason of flooding in the Kakheti District of Georgia. The stormy nature paralysed the traffic for several hours in the Gurdzhaani-Lagodekhi-Tbilisi highway.

Today, the united trade unions of Georgia begin miners' warning strikes in Zestafoni and Chiatura, in western Georgia. The trade unions demand increase of wages and longer vacations.

Chechnya goes on with the process of paying monetary compensations for the housing lost in the course of the warfare, which was started back in 2003. The authorities of the republic promise to pay out, till the end of this year, the sums as established by the law - 350,000 roubles (300,000 for destroyed houses and 50,000 - for lost property) - to 5300 families.

A hacker Albert Saaev, condemned to two years of imprisonment for hacking governmental websites of North-Caucasian republics, is now in SIZO (pre-trial prison) in Grozny; within the next few days a new charge will be presented to him, as reported by the spokesman of the Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya.

Most likely, in the near future, the Russian ship detained by Georgian frontier guards on April 17 in the water area of the port of Batumi, will be fined by 65,000 laris (about 37,000 US dollars) for "polluting the water area of the Black Sea."

The authorities of Sochi plan to bring the city-resort to the uniform architectural style by having repainted red all the roofs in the city and its vicinities.

Power agents state detention of suspects of committing terror acts in Moscow; explosions and shelling accompany one year's anniversary of CTO regime cancellation; Sochi residents are on duty round the clock in cut-down green zones, but IOC commission continues naming the preparation of Olympiad-2014 successful; Lithuania goes on prosecuting the large Chechen family of Gataevs; Armenians prepare for the Memory Day of genocide victims and its recognition by local authorities of Georgia and Kuban; PACE delegation studied the situation in Georgia and Abkhazia, but "got stuck" on the border of South Ossetia, - look up these and other events in the review of the week of April 12-18, 2010, in the Caucasian regions prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Today, Isa Magomedov, a resident of Kara-Tyube village, Babayurt District of Dagestan, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the 17 villagers detained on April 15 have been released from the Babayurt ROVD.

Today, the United Transport Administration (UTA) of Georgia has disseminated a statement intended for all airlines and airports of the world that the Tbilisi Airport has problems because of the approaching ash cloud from the Iceland volcano.

Today the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation has announced its decision on the case, which entailed check of the constitutionality of part 2, Article 30, and part 2, Article 325, of the Russian Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) the Russian Federation, according to which crimes of terrorist character cannot be tried by juries. The Court has found no contradiction of the above provisions with the Russian Constitution.

The death of the Georgian athlete - sledge racer Nodar Kumaritashvili - in the Olympic track in Whistler was an "unforeseeable fatal accident," which was a result of a chain of events, runs the conclusion of the International Luge Federation (FIL), placed today in the website of the organization.