News

The Court for Heavy Crimes has started the proceedings on the case of Farkhad Aliev, former Minister for Economic Development of Azerbaijan, and 18 other persons, including his brother Rafik Aliev, former president of the Azpetrol oil company.

Lawyer Oksana Suprunova who defended the interests of a group of Bataisk Chernobyl liquidators at the Strasbourg Court told that the European Court for Human Rights had concluded that the cancellation of the lower court instance's ruling in favour of Chernobyl liquidators by the supervisory instance was a breach of the human right for a fair trial.

Tonight the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent had a meeting in the "Yuzhnaya" mosque with the parishioners - victims of the incident on March 30, 2007.

Today, the last issue of the "Baky Khabar" newspaper has appeared in Azerbaijan: its publication will be suspended for indefinite time, said editor-in-chief Aidyn Guliev.

For the second time today, the victims have disrupted the announcement by the court of its judgement on the amnesty petition filed by three militiamen accused of negligence in the case of Beslan terror act. They were indignant at the judge's double attempt to announce the judgement in the absence of the defendants.

Currently, Georgia hosts a joint working group of the Chechen government and the FMS (Federal Migration Service) of Russia involved in resolving the problems related to homecoming of forced migrants from the Chechen Republic who had left their homes with the start of the "counterterrorist operation."

Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Chechen Branch of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial," has stated that the cases when employees of power agencies, while imitating their fight against militants, are goofing on innocent people in Chechnya are "as many as one wishes."

The Corriere della Sera newspaper has retold the manifesto of the Moscow Human Rights Society "Memorial," with which the Society presents itself to the Oslo Jury - the "Memorial" has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

The investigators deny the nationalist character of the massacres of "Caucasians" in Moscow, allegedly accomplished by two students from the Russian capital.

The North-Caucasian Regional Military Court has made a decision to go on with proceedings despite the absence of three out of the four defendants - Eduard Ulman, Vladimir Voevodin and Alexander Kalaganskiy (only defendant Alexei Perelevskiy is present in the courtroom).

On June 6, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court will consider the cassation appeal against the decision of the Tagilstroj District Court of the city of Nizhni Tagil of March 9, 2007, according to which the custody regime for Mikhail Trepashkin, a political prisoner serving his term at the Correction Colony (IK-13), was toughened (transfer from settlement-colony into general regime colony).

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (RF) has made a decision to consider, with participation of representatives of the parties, the appeal of the parents of the militants who died on October 13, 2005, in Nalchik.

Anna Politkovskaya's colleagues from the "Novaya Gazeta" have progressed a lot in their investigation and found it necessary to tell the story. "We have identified the customers of the murder," Vyacheslav Izmailov, a former officer of the Russian Army, now a journalist of the newspaper engaged in the investigation, says.

A scandalous case about crimes committed on motives of national hatred is investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the South-West District of Moscow: a young skinhead has confessed of murdering 37 persons, including Caucasian natives.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received and delivered to the State Office of Public Prosecutor the documents on extradition of Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoj accused by the British authorities of murdering FSB ex-officer Alexander Litvinenko.

One of the five mosques closed by the authorities in August 2004 has reopened in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, in the "Aleksandrovka" dwelling district.

In Azerbaijan, the satirical web site Tinsoмbeti.com was hacked and blocked. People at the Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Security are sure that the hacker's attack was undertaken under the command of Azerbaijani authorities who are resolutely and regularly criticising the web site.

Today, the NGOs of the Republic of South Ossetia have disseminated their Appeal to International Community. The Appeal was sent to the United Nations, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), OSCE, NATO, and European NGOs and public organizations.

At the NGO Resource Centre (RC) of Stepanakert, a meeting took place of the leaders of NGOs of Nagorny Karabakh with Batal Kobakhiya and Liana Kvarcheliya, representatives of the Centre for Humanitarian Programmes of Abkhazia.

In the city of Stavropol, in the evening of May 24, a mass fight burst out near one of the casinos, in which, by different sources, from 100 to 300 young people took part. As a result of the fight, Gilani Ataev, a 2-year law student of the Modern Humanities Academy, was killed.