Abdullah Khamzaev awarded Peace Prize

Abdullah Khamzaev, a Chechen lawyer, has become laureate of the Peace Prize set up by a coalition of human rights organizations in Chechnya and Russia called The Yalta Initiative for Peace in Chechnya (TYIPC), TYIPC Board member Ruslan Badalov said.

"To our mind, Abdullah Khamzaev is the most deserving candidate from among those nominated for the competition. His participation in Colonel Budanov's trial led to imprisonment of the murderer, while the lawyer had a cardiac arrest," Badalov said.

The TYIPC announced the Peace Prize action in the middle of last year. Accepted for the competition were candidacies of public and NGO figures in peacekeeping, human rights advocacy, and humanitarian aid in the North Caucasus.

On completion of the nomination process, the Council of the TYIPC Board was to proceed from some previously developed criteria to determine two winners in the Peace Prize competition (from the Chechen and Russian sides) who made the most substantial contribution to peacekeeping aimed at cessation of war in Chechnya, a TYIPC official release said.

Determining the winners took two stages, Badalov said. "A total of 45 applications were lodged. Five finalists on each side were picked by a candidate-by-candidate vote among TYIPC members," he explained.

Besides Khamzaev, the Chechen finalists included Tamerlan Aliev, editor of Chechenskoe Obshchestvo newspaper; Sulumbek Tashtamirov, head of the human rights organization Sintar known for his hunger strikes in protest against war in Chechnya; Musa Kornukaev who was the first to go on such a hunger strike two years and a half ago; and Eliza Musaeva, head of the Human Rights Center Memorial in Nazran, Ingushetia.

 "Only TYIPC Board members decided in the second stage which of the finalists would be the most worthy in peacekeeping. A decision was made to award the Peace Prize to Abdullah Khamzaev and Elena Batenkova on the Russian side, a constant organizer of anti-war pickets in Moscow," Badalov said.

The organizers had wanted Lord Judd, the former rapporteur on Chechnya to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, to hand the prize to the winners. However, Peace Prize Project Coordinator Ivan Sventitskii said he had been denied a Russian visa. Russia's Foreign Ministry explained the denial with some technical reasons.

From the files on Abdullah Khamzaev submitted to the competition by Stanislav Dmitrievskii, a co-chair of the human rights organization Russian-Chechen Friendship Society: "The key line of peacekeeping activity of defense lawyer Khamzaev, an Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, can be described as 'peace through justice.' His activities are unique: practically without any financial support from sponsors, for a long time he has performed as a lawyer for the injured party - war crimes victims - in both the further inquiry stage and preliminary investigation, as well as in courts at various levels (including the European Court of Human Rights)."