Russia/Stavropol Krai

08.10.2002

Judicial conveyor for terrorists

Numerous trials in Stavropol are closed to the public

In Pyatigorsk, the permanent session of the Stavropol Krai Court in Kavminvody is simultaneously conducting several trials of Karachay-Cherkess Wahhabis accused of committing terrorist acts and a number of other serious crimes. Notably, all the trials are closed, taking place under heavy guard and in conditions of increased secrecy on the territory of the city's pre-trial detention center. Naturally, information from the courtroom is extremely scarce, as journalists are not allowed into the trial, only occasionally being permitted to attend the sentencing stage.

Last year, in connection with a similar situation at the trials of "Basayevites" in Stavropol, journalists from local publications appealed to the judicial collegium for criminal cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, claiming a violation of their rights. Their main argument was the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code itself, which clearly define the reasons for appointing a closed trial: cases involving minors, sexual crimes, and those concerning state secrets. However, none of these conditions had any relation to those trials.

Today the situation is somewhat different. In the trials held recently in Pyatigorsk against participants in the failed coup d'état in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, according to representatives of the prosecutor's office, serious security measures were taken because during the preliminary investigation, attempts to disrupt the investigation were noticed more than once. In addition, the defendants also appear as witnesses in other crimes, including terrorist acts in Minvody, Essentuki, and the Karachay-Cherkess village of Adyge-Khabl, and the disclosure of investigative materials could harm their investigation and the search for other suspects.

Thanks to these arguments, the criminal case of a coup d'état, unprecedented for Russia, passed almost unnoticed by the public, although during the first trial, 16 people were in the dock at once. For attempting an armed overthrow of power, mutiny, and committing robberies, murders, as well as for participating in illegal armed formations, they received from 3.5 to 15 years of imprisonment.

Even before this sentence was passed, a second trial began in the Pyatigorsk pre-trial detention center, but no longer of ordinary participants, but of the organizers of the armed coup - Khyzyr Salpagarov and his two associates Ramazan Gochiyayev and Eduard Kharatokov, who were subsequently sentenced to 19, 23, and 15 years of imprisonment, respectively. In addition to the armed seizure of power, they were charged with organizing terrorist acts in Stavropol that claimed the lives of dozens of people, as well as inciting racial, national, and religious hatred, public calls for a violent change of the constitutional order, organizing a criminal community, murder, forgery of documents, and illegal possession of firearms.