Anniversary of attack on Nalchik: 7 years after tragedy

Tomorrow, October 13, is the 7th anniversary of the date of militants' attack on law enforcement agencies of Kabardino-Balkaria, committed in 2005. The trial on the attack is underway for four years already. The trial is one of the largest in Russia by the number of defendants and the number of charge volumes. According to local experts, the trial influences all aspects of social and political life of the republic.

The attack on Nalchik, committed on October 13, 2005, killed 35 law enforcement agents and military personnel, 14 civilians, and 92 attackers. 129 law enforcement agents and 66 civilians got injuries of varying severity.

The militants simultaneously attacked the buildings of the Ministry of internal Affairs (MIA), the FSB of Kabardino-Balkaria, the airport, the military commissariat and other institutions. The attack had damaged and destroyed the property of legal entities and individuals for the amount of more than 54.8 million roubles.

Consideration of case started in 2008

In August 2006, one of the episodes of the general criminal cases was brought to the court the attack on the OMON (riot police) base, in which the charges were filed against eight residents of the village of Nartan. However, the court did not even have time to start preliminary court hearing, since prosecutors withdrew the case to combine all episodes of the criminal case.

To conduct the trial in Nalchik, a new court session building has been constructed, adjacent to the SIZO (pre-trial prison), where the defendants are kept at present.

In September 2007, the combined criminal case was brought to the court.

According to the indictment, signed by Ivan Sydoruk, who at that time occupied the position of the Deputy General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, the preliminary investigation revealed that at night of October 13-14, 2005, members of the armed criminal groupings in the number of at least 250 persons committed an armed attack on a number of facilities of law enforcement agencies and organizations in Nalchik.

According to investigators, the attack was committed under command of Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basaev, Ilyas Gorchkhanov, Anzor Astemirov, and foreign citizens Khattab, Abu Al Valid, and Abu Dzeit. The attack was aimed to forcibly change the constitutional order of Russia, violate its territorial integrity and form an Islamic state in the territory of the North-Caucasian region.

According to the prosecutors, the participants of the attack on the law enforcement agencies of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) pursued an aim to capture weapons; however, they did not succeed "for reasons beyond their control".

On November 2, 2007, the Supreme Court (SC) of Kabardino-Balkaria, chaired by Judge Mukhamed Tashuev, started to consider the case. In March 2008, the SC pronounced the decision to consider the case by the jury trial. After that, during a year, the SC tried to form a jury panel; however, finally, it did not succeed in forming it.

In December 2008, Russia adopted amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, which provide for the abolition of jury trial in consideration of cases of specific serious crimes, including those associated with terrorist. On that basis, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria made a decision to form a panel of three judges to conduct the trial. The trial is been chaired by Galina Gorislavskaya.

The criminal case consists of more than 1300 volumes of materials. Of them, 530 volumes form the indictment. The criminal case involves 1300 witnesses and 191 victims.

The criminal case also involves 29 lawyers and 6 public prosecutors. The trial is held at high security measures.

Prisoners' dock contains more than 50 persons

The prisoners' dock contains 57 persons, the youngest of them is 24 years old, and the oldest on is 40 years old. Among the defendants, there are unemployed persons, workers, a doctor, an accountant, persons with earlier criminal records and without them, and persons with different levels of education from lower secondary to higher education.

Initially, 59 defendants appeared in the Court. On February 16, 2008, Valery Bolov, one of the defendants, died from liver cirrhosis. The Court decided to close criminal proceedings against Valery Bolov in connection with his death. In last November, the case against Sarabi Seyunov, one of the defendants, who fell ill with tuberculosis in prison, was separated into individual proceedings. However, in this July, the judicial panel on criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the KBR cancelled that decision, and Sarabi Seyunov should be returned to the trial.

At present, 53 defendants remain in custody. Anzor Ashev, Kazbek Budtuev, Zalim Ulibashev, and Sergey Kaziev were released on recognizance not to leave.

The defendants are charged of terrorism, banditry, organization and participation in armed rebellion, participation in organized criminal grouping, murder and attempt on murder of law enforcement officers.

The criminal proceedings against 13 defendants, accused of the events of October 2005 in Nalchik, were terminated in connection with an amnesty and against 95 defendants in connection with their deaths. 14 more defendants were put on the wanted list.

In total, the criminal case consists of 12 episodes. In January 2012, the Court started consideration of the last episode of the criminal case the attack on the checkpoint of the patrol-and-post service at the entrance to the village of Khassanya.

At present, the Court examined the evidences, presented by the prosecutors on all episodes of the criminal case. In late March of this year, the prosecutors completed to present their evidences, and the Court began to consider the presentation of defence's evidences. The defendants give testimonies.

More than 100 court sessions have been held on the case, and the website of the Supreme Court of the KBR provides information on 85 of them starting from April 24, 2008, till November 14, 2011.

Attack on Nalchik caused by militia brutality and impunity, human rights defenders assert. Defendants plead not guilty

Most of the defendants do not admit their guilt. They stated that after the announcement of the indictment at the court session held on April 21, 2009. Some defendants stated that they recognized their guilt only under one Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation possession and keeping of weapons, and some defendants made statements that the evidences against them were obtained under pressure. The defendants stated the same also later, in particular, at the recent court session, which was held on October 9, 2012.

This year, staff members of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" sent the information about torture of several defendants in the case on the attack on Nalchik to Alexander Bastrykin, Chairman of the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), to be investigated by a special unit within the structure of the ICRF.

Starting from the very beginning of the trial, the defendant's lawyers stated that the indictment was built on assumptions rather than facts. They claimed existing "allowances" in the indictment and argued that in the course of the judicial investigation, they would prove the innocence of their clients.

However, the prosecutors believe the opposite. In June 2011, Olga Menshikova, Chief of the Division to ensure participation of prosecutors in consideration of criminal cases by courts of the Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), stated that most part of the evidences in the criminal case had already been examined and the prosecutors would insist on life sentence for the leader of the grouping and its active members.

According to human rights defenders, the very attack on Nalchik attack had been provoked by repressions against Muslims. In particular, in its appeal made in connection with the 5th anniversary of the attack on Nalchik, committed on October 13, 2005, in Kabardino-Balkaria, the Human Rights Centre states that the blame for the tragedy lies not only with those persons, who preached armed jihad, but with the law enforcement agencies, the then political leaders of the republic, and with the society of Kabardino-Balkaria in general.

Residents of Kabardino-Balkaria, questioned by the staff members of the HRC "Memorial", also mentioned militia brutality and impunity in the republic as the main cause of the tragedy of October 2005 in Nalchik. According to the questioned residents of Kabardino-Balkaria, in the republic, "the combat against Wahhabism turned into persecution of Muslims in general."

Prolonged trial against attackers on Nalchik attack does not contribute to improvement of situation in Kabardino-Balkaria, local experts assert

The trial in the case of the attack on Nalchik, which is underway for four years already, influences all aspects of social and political life. This was stated by Valery Khatazhukov, the leader of the Kabardino-Balkarian human rights centre.

"The people want it to be finished soon," Valery Khatazhukov said in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to him, if all of the episodes were not combined into the one case, the trial would have already finished.

Valery Khatazhukov has emphasized that the amendments to the legislation, in accordance with which cases associated with terrorism were removed from the jurisdiction of jury trials, also delayed the consideration and politicized the criminal case.

He has also noted that local and federal media, with only several exceptions, do not show interest in highlighting the trial, despite the fact that it is the most massive trial in the history of the Russian justice.

"If the trial were objective, we would have understood the causes of the incident. Unfortunately, the trial does not provide us with such hope," Valery Khatazhukov says.

Murat Khokonov, a member of the Republic' Public Chamber, Professor of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University (KBSU), also believes that delaying of the trial on the case of the attack on Nalchik has no constructive nature and does not contribute to improvement of the situation.