Is Budanov case about „political order“?The case of Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov, who had been charged with kidnapping and murder of 18-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva in late March 2000, saw another turnround when the military court in the South Russian town of Roston-on-Don today decided that it needs a new, already third psychiatrical examination of the Russian colonel.
In May, the experts of the Serbski Institute of Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow where Budanov was examined for the second time came to a conclusion that Budanov suffers from a mental deviation and „was not responsible for his behaviour“ in moment of the act. Originally, that conclusion was accepted by the Rostov-on-Don court - at least until it became apparent yesterday that it changed its mind.
In June, prosecutor Sergey Nazarov even withdrew the accusation of murder and proposed to release Budanov with respect to his merits and to a new decree of President Putin. Having received a great deal of criticism by pro-Moscown Chechen-politicians as well as some Russian public figures, Nazarov stepped down from his post "due to health reasons" and was replaced by his superior Vladimir Milovanenko.
Hopefully, the third examination will be final and the court will pay more attention to the composition of the examination committee. In Soviet times psychiatry served for political purposes. Opponents of the communist regime were often examined by specialists of the Serbski Institute, called schizophrenics and locked up at hospitals.
According to Czech news agency ČTK, the expertise on Budanov was worked out also by Professor Tamara Pechernikova, who in the Soviet era was in charge of forced psychiatric treatment of Soviet dissidents. One of the first dissidents was Nataliya Gorbanyevskaya, who in August 1968 protested in the Red Square in Moscow against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet-led armies. Dissidents Vyacheslav Igrunov, Aleksandr Podrabinek and Aleksandr Ginzburg and many other members of the Moscow Helsinki Group were subject to a drastic „treatment“ thanks to the decisions of Pechernikova, ČTK wrote.
Some human rights activists presume that the court is under political pressure and that even psychiatrical examination of Budanov was „made to order“. After all, how would one explain the fact that the court requires another examination once accepted the conclusion of the last one? However, it seems as the „political order“ changed in the last days. Even general Moltenskoi says the court desicion will be „just“. "The law should be the same for everyone, including for those in uniform," Interfax quoted him as saying yesterday.
The Russian federal army must come to a decision now. Either to confess that murdering civilians and raping women in Chechnya is not the hallucination of human rights activists, or to admit that an insane man who „is not responsible for his behaviour“ can serve in its ranks for twenty years as a colonel.
Petr Janouch is Prague Watchdog's irregular contributor.
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