Notorious terrorist “feels at ease” in the courtroom

Court hearings on notorious Chechen terrorist Salman Raduyev’s case resumed today at 10am Moscow time in the city of Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s constituent republic of Daghestan. The reading of the bill of indictment, which started yesterday after an address made by Procurator General Vladimir Ustinov, has just ended. Salman Raduyev is being accused on a number of accounts, and there are three volumes of indictments, which contain approximately 500 pages.

The raids on Kizlyar and then in Pervomaiskoye (villages in Dagestan), which resulted in numerous innocent victims, according to Raduyev's investigation testimony, were carried out on the orders of Dzhorkhar Dudayev, the former President of the Chechen Republic. According to the terrorist, this act was politically motivated with the aim being to attract the attention of the international community to the events in Chechnya.

Journalists, who are present in the court room, note that the defendant seems to be in good spirits. He has again grown his beard and also wears dark-lensed spectacles and his favourite a baseball cap. Therefore, he again looks like that very terrorist whose videofilmed appeals to crush Russia were earlier being distributed from Chechnya. Mr. Raduyev answers the judge’s questions ironically or just ignores the hearings. He openly talks to his fellow defendants, sometimes even laughing, journalists say.

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/16/33894.html