The Week in Brief: April 9 - April 15, 2001
Mon, April 9
Viktor Dokhnov officially started his half-yearly term of office as Chechnya's new prosecutor within the federal judicial system, replacing acting prosecutor Vsevolod Chernov.
Some 2,000 residents of Chechen capital Grozny held an anti-war rally in the capital's southern district of Chernorechye in protest against heavy shelling of residential areas of the neighbouring settlement Aldi and district Oktyabrski in the south-western part of Grozny. The shelling, which was carried out by the Russian artillery on the previous night, killed several people and destroyed about twenty houses.
Tue, April 10
The military court in the South Russian town of Roston-on-Don again postponed the trial with Col. Yuri Budanov, who in late March 2000 killed Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva, after he took her in her house in the village of Tangi. The court hearings were to resume on Wednesday but were postponed again.
Various accounts of the alleged discovery of seventeen bodies in the basement of a police building in the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny emerged.
Wed, April 11
The security situation in Chechnya's capital Grozny "is not getting better, but worse," the Russian minister responsible for Chechnya, Vladimir Yelagin, said, pointing at the fact that at night Grozny is controlled by Chechen fighters.
Thu, April 12
One of the deputy heads of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration and influential Chechen politician cooperating with the federal centre, Adam Deniyev, was killed by a bomb blast at a private television studio in village Avturi in the Shali district, southeast of Grozny.
The European Union presented to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights a five-page resolution which strongly protests against continuing use of disproportionate and indiscriminate force against Chechen civilians, including executions, torture and arbitrary detentions.
Fri, April 13
The United Nations office in the Russian Federation informed that during the past 18 months, UN agencies and their partners have carried out humanitarian programmes in Ingushetia and Chechnya valued at US$ 56.4 million.
Sat, April 14
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Chechnya for the first time since he took his presidential office in March 2000. Putin, accompanied by Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov and Mass Media Minister Mikhail Lesin, visited military base Khankala near Grozny in order to discuss, among other things, soldiers' unpaid wages.
Sun, April 15
No major events.
Compiled by Prague Watchdog
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