Colonel Budanov case raises doubts about impartiality of judicial bodiesRuslan Isayev, North Caucasus – The court decision on declaring Colonel Yuri Budanov, who had been charged with rape and murder of Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva, irresponsible of his action at the moment of his deed, has been sharply condemned by the victim’s father, Visa Kungayev.
Kungayev has been for the third month already getting treatment at the tuberculosis clinic in Nazran, Ingushetia, which was the only reason that prevented him for arriving in Roston-on-Don for the hearing. Kungayev claims that he had notified the court about the state of his health, asking it not to resume the hearing without his participation.
However, on May 14 it became known that experts of the Serbski Institute of Forensic Psychiatry where Budanov was examined came to a conclusion that the officer suffers from a mental deviation. That conclusion has been accepted by the Rostov court.
„I don’t believe that the man is mentally ill. If he were, would he be entrusted to command a tank regiment?,” Kungayev asks.
18-year-old Elza Kungayeva, a resident of the Tangi-Chu village in the Urus-Martan district, was in the year 2000 abducted from her home by Colonel Budanov, the commander of a tank regiment stationed at the village, and the regiment’s chief-of-staff Fedorov. Having moved the fainted girl to the garrison, Budanov is supposed of having raped and strangled her. Then he ordered his subordinates to bury her body in the nearby forest.
Only thanks to the wide publicity which the crime received, it was possible to file charges against the Russian officer. As of today, the military prosecution is looking into several cases of rape of Chechen women by Russian servicemen in Chechnya. These cases have not generated much publicity, so that the already shaken authority of the Russian army were not further undermined.
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