Dagestan: case on Sapiyat Magomedova's beating by power agents returned from court to prosecutor's office

Today, Judge Ibragim Tashanov of the Khasavyurt City Court of the Republic of Dagestan pronounced the return of the criminal case initiated against the police officers of the OVD (Interior Division) of Khasavyurt, who were accused of beating lawyer Sapiyat Magomedova on June 17, 2010, to the prosecutor's office. Now the accused power agents can again become the defendants, in case the acquittal of Sapiyat Magomedova on the criminal case, which was initiated against herself, is pronounced.

Today, in his ruling Judge Ibragim Tashanov referred to the fact that the description of the same criminal event should be identical not only in various materials of the same criminal case, but also in various criminal cases, and, according to Judge, presence of two alternative descriptions of the same event makes impossible the objective and comprehensive consideration of the criminal case by the court.

Namely the existence of two criminal cases encouraged lawyer Magomedzagirova to file a motion requesting to return the case to the prosecutor' office for the removal of obstacles for its consideration.

On September 21, Sapiyat Magomedova with her representative and Gasan Gasanov, the public prosecution representative (indictments for both criminal cases were signed by Magomed Dibirov, Deputy Prosecutor of Dagestan), argued against the motion of the defendants' lawyer.

Gasan Gasanov stated that the motion of Magomedzagirova was unreasonable and to be dismissed and noted that the criminal case could be sent back to the prosecutor's office only in case if the investigation materials contained contradictions or violations of the law, which could not be resolved at trial and which excluded the possibility for the court to deliver a verdict.

The prosecutor found out no such inherent contradictions in the criminal case.

There are two scenarios for the situation development. They depend on what defence strategy Sapiyat Magomedova and her lawyer will choose.

In case if they are guided by the principle of prejudicialness (the prejudicialness is obligatoriness for all courts considering the case to take without examination and evidence the facts previously adopted by the valid court decision on another case, - note of the "Caucasian Knot") and request the court to return to the prosecutor's office the case against Sapiyat Magomedova with charges of using violence against a power official, then the both cases are at risk of getting stuck again in the long corridors of the investigation labyrinth.

If Sapiyat Magomedova does not insist on the return of the case, on which she is accused, to the prosecutor's office, then only in case of her acquittal the militia officers Magdiev and Mollaev will automatically, all on the same principle of prejudicialness, become defendants in the case in which Sapiyat Magomedova is a victim party. In this case, after the lawyer's acquittal, Nariman Mollaev and Batirbi Magdiev, the officers of the OVD of Khasavyurt, will again appear before the court as defendants.

Comments of Sapiyat Magomedova and her lawyer on the further conduct of the case are still unavailable.