Five reasons to continue the search for the killer of Budanov

Photo: Alexander Chernavsky / ITAR-TASS

The Moscow City Court sentenced to 15 years the native of Chechnya Yusup Temerkhanov, finding him guilty of the murder of ex-colonel Yuri Budanov, who was fraught and convicted earlier for the murder of the Chechen girl, Elsa Kungaeva. The jury was made on the guilt of Temerkhanov, and the judge Andrei Korotkov only remained to establish a measure of punishment based on the sane articles.

Korotkov read out the text of the verdict for no more than 10 minutes, all this time the accused sat quietly in the cage and smiled, looking at the courtroom. His lawyer Murad Musaev, going out to two dozens of correspondents, issued already a rehearsed speech, promising to appeal the decision on a “fabricated case”. The prosecutors after the announcement of the sentence did not hide pleasure: a colonel with bleached hair Maria Semenenko, having acquired a colleague in a blue tunic by his elbow, shone that the defense had practically no chance to appeal such a thing. Half an hour later, with a dozen other prosecutors, she went to note the completion of the process to the Georgian restaurant across the road. But the journalists all discussed what had just happened in the Moscow City Court: the triumph of justice or the condemnation of the innocent.

The main arguments of law enforcement agencies: June 10, 2010, a person who made eight shots at Colonel Budanov disappeared on the red Mitsubishi Lancer. Later, the investigators found the car burned, and in it lay a gun from which they shot at the former officer, as well as a magazine with a fingerprint Temerhanov. Then the police found the hijackers who sold the car to a native of Chechnya. In addition, he found a fake passport in the name of Magomed Suleimanov, which could indicate his involvement in criminal circles. In addition, at one time, Temerkhanov advised the forensic scientist Igor Godunov for his book “Organized Crime: From Dawn to Sunset”.

But at the trial, the harmonious version of the investigation was questioned. Slon quotes 5 theses forced to doubt the verdict: perhaps an innocent person goes to prison.

1. Motivation of Temerhanov for the murder of Budanov

Yusup Temerkhanov had never encountered Budanov, according to lawyers, he heard the name of the former colonel only in the media in connection with the case of Elsa Kungaeva, and that his name was Yuri, already learned from the investigators. However, in 2000, Temerhanov’s father was killed by federal military personnel in Chechnya, which gave rise to investigators and prosecutors to insist: the Chechen "was hatred and enmity for the social group - Russian military." Therefore, the prosecutors made a conclusion, Temerkhanov wanted to take revenge all his life, and Budanov was the most striking representative of the social group hated for him. True, for some reason, in order to gather and make revenge of the entire Russian army, Yusup needed more than 10 years.

2. Markin's statement that the killer was Slavic appearance

On the day of the murder of Yuri Budanov, the official representative of the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin spoke before the journalists. He made a statement that made a strong impression on those who, without hesitation for a long time, built the concept of the “Chechen revenge” to the ex-office: the car in which the killer of Budanov sat down the man of Slavic appearance. What about Temerhanov can not be said. Later, the investigation came to the conclusion that the driver of the car and the killer was the same person. However, then the investigating authorities did not recall their original statement, and not sensing openly criticized the Deputy Prime Minister Surkov Vladimir Markin did not dare to come to the trial of Temerkhanov as a witness.

3. Anonymous witnesses of the prosecution

The prosecution decided to classify most of the witnesses, endowing them with code names, which is why confusion constantly arose in court: for example, the case materials said that one person was hiding behind the code names “Aslan” and “Alan”, but someone was mistaken when writing a pseudo-nominal. In addition, at the request of the prosecutor's office, written written testimonies were read out, but the witnesses themselves were not invited to the court.

4. The testimony of witnesses who did not recognize the killer in Temerhanov

Due to the fact that the bodies classified witnesses, the defenders of Temerkhanov had to look for eyewitnesses to the murders who were ready to testify. Among them were two key, Alexander Yevtukhov and Ruslan Fatiliev. Moreover, Yevtukhov saw the killer near: he ran to his Mitsubishi, recorded the car number (this was recorded by the video surveillance camera). After that, Yevtukhov called the police and an ambulance. Then, in the summer of 2010, he testified that the killer was a man of Slavic appearance with blond hair. The lawyers brought Yevtukhov from Novosibirsk to the court, where he repeated his former words and said that he did not identify the killer in Temerhanov. In turn, Temerkhanov and Fatiliev did not recognize.

However, after their testimony, the scandal erupted: the prosecutors claimed that Yevtukhov received 100 thousand rubles, and Fatiliev - 15 thousand rubles from the hands of the defense representative, began to talk about bribery. Both witnesses later abandoned their testimony. Now the defense said that law enforcement officers were pressure on them, demanding that they refuse to testimony. The lawyers recalled that the testimony of Yevtukhov and Fatiliev in court did not differ from their first testimonies taken immediately after the murder.

The first collegium was dissolved due to the fact that two jury stopped going to court, and before two were replaced before. The fate of the Second College also began with self -assassination: first three assessors refused, and then two more, they were replaced by jury from the spare list. Ultimately, the jury gave the result that prosecutors insisted: out of 12 people 9, approved the prosecution arguments.