Translated material
Judicial boycott
“Mothers of Beslan” are ready to disrupt the trial of Ingush policemen
The trial of the leaders of the Malgobek District Department of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia , accused of negligence, due to which the militants' raid on Beslan became possible, was in jeopardy before it had even really begun. Yesterday, for the second time, the court was forced to postpone the hearing due to the failure of representatives of the injured party to appear. The latter stated that they were not going to go to court in the future.The accused in the case are the former head of the Malgobek district police department Bagaudin Evloev and his deputy Akhmed Kotiev. At first it was planned that court hearings would be held in Nazran, in the Supreme Court (SC) of Ingushetia. The victims, for security reasons, insisted that the trial take place in North Ossetia. As a compromise, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria in Nalchik was chosen as the venue for the trial. But representatives of the “Mothers of Beslan” and “Voice of Beslan” committees, as it turned out, do not intend to come there either. The women who lost their children in Beslan school No. 1 said they were confident that the trial would be acquitted.
According to the indictment, which the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria has not yet been able to read, the accused, being officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia, did not take proper measures to protect public order in the Malgobek region, did not organize operational search activities to identify militants and their accomplices . All this, according to investigators, during the period from August 26 to August 31, 2004, allowed the gang members to freely gather in the forest in the area of the villages of Sagopshi and Psedakh, Malgobek region, and on the morning of September 1 - to drive through the region towards the border with North Ossetia and get to Beslan. There, militants took hostage 1,128 students, their parents and teachers who came to the ceremony. The terrorist attack killed 331 people.
All this was supposed to be told to the people's judges on Wednesday, who were brought to Nalchik by bus from Ingushetia in the morning. On May 30, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria selected a panel of jurors, for which more than 200 residents of Ingushetia were brought to Nalchik. 12 of them were included in the main composition of the board, four - in the reserve.
Jury selection took place behind closed doors. At the same time, each candidate was asked the question: “Did his relatives participate in the attack on school No. 1 in Beslan?” Everyone answered negatively. However, four potential assessors aroused suspicion among representatives of the injured party. Their surnames coincided with the surnames of the militants who were listed in the materials of the main criminal case as killed during the September terrorist attack. “There are no namesakes in the Caucasus, they are relatives,” Ella Kesaeva, chairman of the “Voice of Beslan” committee, categorically stated. As a result, the victims challenged not only the “suspicious” jury candidates, but also other participants in the process - the presiding officer Isa Gazdiev, who is a member of the Ingushetian Armed Forces, and the prosecutor representing the Ingushetia prosecutor's office. The protest was rejected, and the judge scheduled a hearing on the merits for June 6. However, neither then nor yesterday the victims simply did not come to court.
Representatives of the Mothers of Beslan committee began to boycott the process, saying that its outcome was predetermined. In addition, according to Ella Kesaeva, many victims simply do not have the opportunity to travel to each court hearing in the neighboring republic, because after suffering physical and moral suffering they are seriously ill or have become disabled. Ms. Kesaeva explained that the victims intend to come to Nalchik only to interrogate witnesses in order to be able to record all violations during the process, which may be necessary to file an appeal to the European Court. However, it turned out to be a vicious circle - in order to begin questioning witnesses, the process must begin, and without victims this is impossible to do.
In addition, members of both Beslan committees fear that the Ingush policemen, like their North Ossetian colleagues, will escape punishment. At the end of May, the Pravoberezhny District Court of North Ossetia granted amnesty to the former leaders of the Pravoberezhny District Department of Internal Affairs, accused of negligence that contributed to the commission of a terrible terrorist attack. The basis for this was the State Duma resolution of September 22, 2006 “On declaring an amnesty for persons who committed crimes during the counter-terrorism operation.” According to intelligence services, from September 1 to September 5, 2004, a counter-terrorist operation was carried out in Beslan.