Court decides on jury candidates' challenges in Nalchik attack case

Today, at the trial on the events on October 13, 2005, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria has announced its decision on the challenges of the candidates for the jury. Out of 46 candidates for the jurymen, who came to the third selection round, only one was chosen.

Advocate Magomed Abubakarov has reported that right after this announcement, representatives of the accusation have again petitioned to transfer the hearing to some other region.

"The prosecution has again lodged a petition to change the territorial jurisdiction, because in the republic forming a board of jurymen is impossible. The accusation has referred to the results of the researches made by local scientists, which run that practically all the residents of the republic are relatives either of the defendants or victims. We don't agree, as we think that even if such studies had been really done, they don't reflect the objective situation," said the lawyer.

The possibility of transferring the trial to some other region has extremely disturbed the defendants' relatives. "It would be a catastrophe for us," said Maryam Ahmatova, mother of one of the defendants. "Our advocates would not go to another region, even to Pyatigorsk; we aren't paying them - their work is paid by the state. None of us has money to bring food for defendants to some other region. When they are sick, we somehow learn about it and try to help them, but in another place they will have no chance."

Magomed Abubakarov has also given his comments on adoption by the Russian State Duma of the law to cancel the court of jury on the cases on terrorism and a number of other crimes. "This law is contradictory to the Constitution," said Mr Abubakarov. "A man can't be labelled as terrorist not being found guilty by the court. The law deprives a defendant of his or her constitutional right to defence."

The advocate has expressed his fears that this new law can be applied to the criminal case on the events on October 13, 2005. "The law is in force as of the moment of its publication, however, it is not excluded that a reservation will be made in it that it should cover the cases where the jury had not been formed," said Magomed Abubakarov. He has noticed that, probably, the prosecution had known about the pending legislation and deliberately procrastinated with the process of forming the jury.