Budanov's case: new prosecutor, new examination, new criminal procedure Alexey Grinev02 July 16:30 MCK

A new psychiatric examination may be carried out in relation to Yuri Budanov , accused of murdering the Chechen girl Elsa Kungaeva , RIA Novosti reports. On Tuesday, Viktor Kostin, who presided over the trial in the Budanov case, raised the question of conducting a new psychological and psychiatric examination. Earlier, Kostin announced the resumption of the judicial investigation.

Kostin justified the decision by the fact that the court needed to clarify the issue of the sanity or insanity of the defendant at the time of the murder. Before starting to discuss this issue, the lawyer of the injured party, Abdulla Khamzaev, filed a petition asking him to wait for the parents of the murdered girl, who were due to arrive in Rostov on Tuesday. According to Khamzaev, parents should also take part in the discussion of the issue of ordering a re-examination.

Comment: Budanov's lawyers call the court's decisions contrary to the Criminal Procedure Code. As Anatoly Mukhin explained to journalists, the court should have made a decision to resume the judicial investigation if new facts had been presented in the debate. However, according to the lawyer, no new information was provided in the debate. Mukhin also noted that a repeated psychiatric examination would require “a huge amount of time.” The previous examination was carried out over six months and, according to Mukhin, the court is not obliged to do this again.

Today's news can, if desired, be called sensational - the day before it was assumed that the final verdict would be rendered on Tuesday. The media considered versions of the colonel's release from the courtroom. The fact is that on June 18, state prosecutor Nazarov proposed that the court find Budanov not guilty of murder, since at the time of its commission, according to a previous examination, the colonel was insane. At the same time, on two charges - abuse of power and kidnapping of a girl - the state prosecutor proposed to sentence Budanov to three years in prison, and then amnesty on the basis of a presidential decree on amnesty on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War.

It is clear that Budanov’s case caused a wide and controversial response in the media. As an example of biased journalism on this topic, one can cite at least a passage from today’s article published on the website Grani.ru :

“So, the judicial machine was stopped at the last moment. Everything was ready to pass a symbolic sentence on the killer and release him in the courtroom under an amnesty. The assistant to the chief military prosecutor, Vladimir Milovanov , who rushed to Rostov-on-Don, known in prosecutorial circles as “the man who solves problems” (like Mr. Wolfe from “Pulp Fiction”), managed to bring Themis to reason in his riding breeches. Initially, it was clear that the judges defined their role in the Budanov case as a kind of patriotic mission. ┘The farce was so blatant that at the last moment the Kremlin woke up, the prosecutor general was filled with righteous indignation. They quickly sent the state prosecutor (or rather, the state prosecutor) to retirement at the trial of Sergei Nazarov. Somehow they brought Milovanov to his senses. Absurd decisions in Russia, of course, would not surprise anyone. But here there would be a clear overkill. Apparently, the supreme power also calculated the international reaction to such justice.”

As for the functional, rather than ideological, semantic plan of the event, many observers really associate the decisive turn in the case with the change of state prosecutor. On Monday, at a court hearing in Rostov, information was announced that state prosecutor Sergei Nazarov, by order of the head of the Ministry of Defense Sergei Ivanov, was transferred to the reserve “for health reasons.” He was replaced by the assistant to the chief military prosecutor of Russia, Vladimir Milovanov, who immediately announced “a change in the position of the state prosecution in terms of assessing the actions of the defendant.”

However, many things pointed to the approaching judicial cataclysm. Already on June 20, Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said that his department was inclined to disagree “with the arguments of the repeated examination, which declared Budanov insane at the time he committed the murder.” Nevertheless, they write "Vesti.ru" , "it seemed to be only about the protest of the Prosecutor General's Office against Budanov's de facto acquittal, which Nazarov's stated position at that time made inevitable." And only on July 1 it became known that on the same day - June 20 - the head of the Ministry of Defense had already sent prosecutor Nazarov to the reserve.

Another, more fundamental factor is that on July 1 the new Criminal Procedure Code came into force . The first thing at the meeting on Monday, prosecutor Milovanov, Vesti.ru subtly noted, referred to Article 246 (Section 4) of this code, which reads: “If during the trial it is discovered that the prosecutor’s further participation is impossible, he can be replaced. The court provides the prosecutor who has newly entered the trial with time to familiarize himself with the materials of the criminal case and prepare for participation in the trial┘ At the request of the prosecutor, the court may repeat interrogations witnesses, victims, experts or other judicial actions."

So it turns out that the Budanov case in this regard appears to be a symbol of the introduction of a new “canon” of justice. It is clear that this canon is supposed to be more progressive than the old one. And therefore, the sentence should be more “progressive”. Many publications are already predicting that Milovanov will lead the trial to a completely different outcome: “He stated that he must make a new indictment speech, in which he will give a different “assessment of the defendant’s actions.” Simply put, he will demand that Budanov be found sane and guilty of murder” ( Gazeta.ru ).

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Budanov's case: new prosecutor, new examination, new criminal procedure code