Yury Budanov no more needs advocates

Colonel Yury Budanov refuses from advocates: he has it enough of protecting himself, he can no more stand endless slowdown of the legal proceedings. This was stated yesterday, at the session of North-Caucasian Military Court by Budanov accused of murdering a Chechen girl Elza Kungaeva March 27, 2000, in Tangi settlement. Budaynov’s speech was harsh and emotional, though the court did not considered the colonel’s application. That was probably the statement of Kungaev’s father, which exasperated Budanov. Yesterday, the court considered his wire asking from postponing the trial for some indefinite time (Visa Kungaev is in hospital now, but he would like to personally attend at the legal proceedings). Kungaev also noticed that he has what to say about the defendant: according to his information, Budanov “deceives the court.” Moreover, the new advocate of the suffered side, Lyudmila Tikhomirova, also proposes to put off the trial. She intends to defend interests of the victim’s mother, Roza Bashaeva. Though, at first Tikhomirova should study numerous materials of the case. Shortly, Stanislav Markelov became the Kungaevs’ advocate, who also proposed to putt off the trial. Apropos, Markelov asked to add to the case’s materials the documents he had gathered, proving the conclusion of the forensic expert commission had been baseless, which acknowledged Budanov to be irresponsible at the moment of committing the crime. As a result, one more pause was declared in the trial. This time, next session is fixed for June 3. ORT presents opinion of Yury Budanov’s lawyers who state that the yesterday’s statement of his client was a kind of protest against the suffered side multiplying the number of its advocates. In the meanwhile, the legal proceedings against colonel Budanov could have in interesting development. The director of Serbsky Social and Forensic Medicine Centre, academician of Russian Academy of Science Tatyana Dmitrieva sent a letter to intermunicipal public prosecutor’s office of Moscow, asking to institute proceedings. It turned out that the Centre’s leadership had “possessed operative information that colonel Budanov could have been kidnapped or killed during the expert examination.” According to Dmitrieva quoted as saying by RIA ‘Novosti’, “anonymous telephone calls arrived in the institute.” The unknown people hinted at carrying out the expert examination to be “dangerous.” As a result, within only one month, while Budanov was examined, all the centre’s territory was guarded by the police. That anonymous calls were probably just a kind of revenge or some unknown people wanted to intimidate the experts examining colonel Yury Budanov…

Sergei Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

NTVRu.com photograph

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/05/27/41810.html

&to=http://www.rbcnews.com' target=_blank>RBC