Grozny military garrison court has already delivered 600 verdictsTimur Aliyev
GROZNY, Chechnya – Over a period of one and a half years around 600
Russian military service personnel in Chechnya have been convicted of
various crimes. This was announced at a press conference in Grozny by
Aleksandr Kuznetsov, chairman of the Grozny military garrison court.
“Since September 1 2003 – the date that the Grozny military garrison
court began its work – we have examined more than 600 criminal cases
involving military service personnel,” he said, adding that 95 percent
of them ended with verdicts being delivered, not one of them “not guilty”.
However, according to Kuznetsov only about 5 percent of these verdicts
related to crimes committed against peaceful residents. The colonel gave
examples of some cases.
In the first one, an official of the Kurchaloi military commandant’s
office named Belyayev murdered a teenager, for which he was sentenced to
13 years of imprisonment in a strict regime corrective facility.
In the second case, a lieutenant with the Interior Ministry forces named
Konovalov opened fire on a village with a submachine gun from a distance
of about a kilometre, killing the local resident Makalov, for which he
was sentenced to three years of imprisonment on a charge of “exceeding
official powers”.
Among those responsible for the crimes committed by service personnel in
Chechnya, Kuznetsov also indicts the military recruitment offices, which
recruit former criminals as contract soldiers for military service in
the country.
“At the time of the robbery two contract soldiers were arrested: one had
tried to smother the old female owner of the house with a cushion, while
the other had beaten up a 10-year -old boy. When their cases were
checked, it turned out that one of the soldiers already had two previous
convictions, for one of which he had already spent time in a corrective
facility,” Kuznetsov relates.
With regard to crimes against peaceful residents committed by military
service personnel before September 2003, Kuznetsov replies evasively.
“Before the garrison court was set up in Chechnya, all cases were sent
to the North Caucasus military circuit court in Rostov. And also to
Bataisk, Pyatigorsk and Astrakhan. So all those cases have either been
examined or are being examined,” he claims.
Translated by David McDuff. (MD/A,B)
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