The war has written off

Colonel Budanov will be released from the psychiatric hospital

One of these days, Colonel Yuri Budanov will be released from custody. This will happen after the former commander of the 160th tank regiment is taken from the Rostov pre-trial detention center for treatment in a specialized psychiatric hospital. Thus, the decision of the court of the North Caucasus Military District will be executed, which declared Yuri Budanov insane at the time of the murder of 18-year-old Chechen Elza Kungaeva and released him from criminal liability for the crime committed. The court agreed with the conclusions of the last two psychological and psychiatric examinations that examined Budanov’s health: when on the night of March 27, 2000, the colonel strangled Elsa Kungaeva during interrogation, considering her to be a militant sniper, he was insane.

The court ruling stated: “Previously (since November 1999 - Ed. ) and now Budanov suffers from a chronic mental disorder in the form of organic brain damage of traumatic origin with pronounced and persistent personality changes... At the time of the crime he could not be fully aware of the nature and social danger of their actions..."

Representatives of the injured party say that Judge Viktor Kostin allegedly specially announced the decision in the case of Colonel Budanov on the evening of December 31 in order to avoid heated discussion in the press. The first newspapers were published only on January 4, and television channels had no time for court proceedings in Rostov during the New Year celebrations. Therefore, the finale of the most high-profile trial of a high-ranking officer of the Russian army who ever committed a crime against the civilian population of Chechnya naturally faded into secondary news.

The lawyer of the Kungaev family, Abdula Khamzaev, told the Vremya Novostei newspaper yesterday that on January 10 he would file a complaint against the decision against Budanov to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. According to the defense lawyer, he does not trust the conclusions of Budanov’s examination, since it was carried out with gross violations. In particular, the Kungaevs’ lawyers did not have the right to challenge the psychiatrists involved in the colonel’s examination, and the composition of the medical commission itself was constantly changing during the trial. Therefore, Mr. Khamzaev believes that the result of the examination is evidence obtained in violation of the law and should be removed from the materials, and the case itself should be sent for a new trial by a different court.

The colonel's defense attorney, Alexey Dulimov, on the contrary, is convinced that the verdict handed down in Budanov's case "shows that there is justice in the country." The colonel's lawyers believe that Yuri Budanov is not a criminal, but a victim of the Chechen war. “Budanov repents of what he did,” they say. “But what happened was largely a consequence of the mental and physical injuries that our client received during the performance of his military duty in the Chechen Republic.”

According to the conclusion of medical experts, Yuri Budanov should have been declared unfit for military service due to a mental disorder long before the murder of Elsa Kungaeva. In this regard, the North Caucasus Military Court issued a private ruling against the Russian Ministry of Defense. In particular, Judge Viktor Kostin pointed out to the military department “insufficient medical control over the state of mental health of military personnel participating in the counter-terrorist operation on the territory of Chechnya.”

Igor BURAKOV, Rostov-on-Don, Alexander SHVAREV