Murder Budanov: Sentence without a motive

The Moscow City Court sentenced Yusup Temerkhanov, found to be guilty of the murder of Yuri Budanov, by 15 years in prison.

The consideration of the case of the murder of Yuri Budanov was accompanied by scandals associated with the abduction of Temerkhanov, his beating in the convoy premises of the Moscow City Court, the loss of witnesses of protection, the accusation of lawyers of their bribery and the dissolution of the first jury collegium. The charge required Temerhanov 16 years in prison. The defense claims that in any case, it will seek the cancellation of the conviction.

The indictment of Yusup Temerkhanov , the only defendant in the case of the murder of Yuri Budanov, was issued by the second board of jury, collected in March after a series of scandals that accompanied the first process in this case. The most loud was the story of the loss of the witness Alexander Yevtukhov , who, being an eyewitness to the crime, described the killer as a man who was not like Temerhanov. Then Yevtukhov was found. After he repeated his testimony in court (though in the absence of jury), Yevtukhov disappeared again, but handed the video in which he claimed that Temerhanov’s lawyers paid him for the testimonies he needed. Later, Yevtukhov’s written statement also appeared that he was supposedly bribed. In bribery, a lawyer was suspected by Daria Train . Since then, says training, she only once had an investigator to give an explanation. And, in her opinion, the whole story of the bribery was undertaken exclusively with the aim of discrediting both the protection of Temerkhanov, and the witnesses objectionable accusations themselves.

Unlike the first jury, the new college had the opportunity to listen to the testimony of most witnesses. But, according to the lawyer Yusup Temerkhanov Murad Musaev , they gave their testimony under pressure from the state prosecutors: they were actually given under the escort, they rehearsed with them for 1.5-2 hours before the trials. To do this, the prosecutors even divered a special room - the office of the Moscow City Court, the cabinet number 617.

"From five to ten operational employees of the Moscow police, these poor intimidated witnesses were driven daily, locked them in the same room, and then brought one at a time in the courtroom, and the witnesses answered like schoolchildren at the board, obviously memorized phrases," says Murad Musaev.

The witness of Yevtukhov, according to lawyers, was key to the so -called state protection for protection. In the second process, he was interrogated through a video conference from the hall of the Novosibirsk court. But, giving testimony for the second time, he stated that he could not remember that key detail due to which Temerhanov’s defense and achieved his appearance in court, the killer’s hair color. During interrogations during the preliminary investigation, immediately after the murder, Yevtukhov said that the attacker had blond hair (they had black Temerhanov. - Ed.). And, telling during the second process about the signs of the killer, the witness stammered and said that he did not remember exactly what the criminal looked like.

“They tried to blame us for bribing a witness to say about blond hair, but it turned out just the opposite: he was captivated so that he would not talk about these hair,” the lawyer Musaev commented on the testimony of Yevtukhov. According to him, throughout all the hearings, the state prosecutors "unprecedentedly violated the law, and the presiding judge in the process took a deliberately indictment."

As a result, nine votes against the three jury found Yusup Temerkhanov guilty of the murder of Yuri Budanov. However, the board did not agree with the motive, which, according to the investigation, was guided by Temerhanov. From the prosecution it followed that Temerkhanov avenged Budanov for his father, who was killed in February 2000 in Chechnya by Russian troops, whose names were never established. Budanova, according to this version, chose Temerkhanov because he was associated with Chechens with the culprits of crimes committed in Chechnya by federal military personnel during the war.

Discussing the consequences of the indictment verdict, the defense of Yusup Temerkhanov drew attention to the fact that in the sentence it is necessary to indicate the motive of the crime, and now it is impossible to do this. “As a result, we have a mentally normal defendant, who, as the verdict reads, for no reason, having no motive, tracked Budanov and shot it,” explains Murad Musaev. “Since our opponents violated the law rudely, they gave us a bunch of trump cards. We are dealing with a completely innocent person who is trying to put to enter for 10-15 years in prison, in prison, in prison, in prison, in prison. We will not allow this at least as much as our strength, we will resist this. ”

According to the head of the human rights center "Memorial" Alexander Cherkasov , how the investigation and two trials in the case of the murder of Budanov passed, one can see the reluctance of the authorities, to investigate the crimes committed by the Russian military during the Second Chechen campaign. After all, Budanov, according to Cherkasov, could have many enemies. For example, among friends and relatives of those who disappeared at a time when Budanov’s regiment was based at the village of Dubai-Yurt. Witnesses reported that at least three of the missing people in the location of the regiment personally took Budanov. The bodies of two of them with traces of terrible torture were subsequently found in the place of the new deployment of the Budanovsky regiment.

Former Colonel of the Russian Army Yuri Budanov was sentenced in 2003 to 10 years in prison on charges of brutal murder of Chechen girl Elsa Kungaeva. In January 2009, despite mass protests in Chechnya , he was thrilled parole. In June 2011, Budanov was shot dead in Moscow.