A prominent human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who represented the family of Elza Kungayeva, was shot dead at around 2:30 p.m. Monday (19 January) on Ulitsa Prechistenko, near the Kropotkinskaya metro station. Prior to the shooting, Markelov had spoken at a news conference at the Independent Press Center on the subject of Budanov’s release on 15 January. A 25 year old correspondent of Novaya Gazeta who accompanied him died from injuries the same evening.
Budanov, convicted in July 2005 for the murder of Kungayeva, was released on parole, sparking outrage among the victim’s family and senior Chechen officials. Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, has requested that a new criminal case be opened against Budanov. Nukhazhiyev had provided investigators with documents from four the Chechen Republic residents accusing Budanov of involvement in the murder and kidnapping of their relatives in 2000.
Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison for strangling Kungayeva in the Chechen Republic in 2000 but an Ulyanovsk court ordered his early release, citing good behavior in prison and more than five years of time served in pretrial detention.
In the news conference, Stanislav Markelov said that Budanov’s release was illegal and that he had filed a complaint but his appeal was rejected. He did not eliminate a possibility of a petition to the European Court of Human Rights in case he would not succeed with the appellate procedure in the Russian Federation. However, he insisted that the cases of the kind must be resolved within the country.
Budanov, who has maintained that he believed Kungayeva was a rebel sniper and said he strangled her in a fit of rage during an interrogation, has become a rallying figure for Russian nationalists who claim that his conviction was merely an attempt to appease the Chechen leadership.
Markelov last week decried the court’s decision to release Budanov. The victim’s father, Visa Kungayev, said Thursday that he intended to push for a new criminal case against Budanov over the purported rape of his daughter, a charge that was dropped early in the original investigation. He accused Budanov of securing his early release with assistance from “his influential friends”. Kungayev also said he and his family feared retribution from Budanov upon his release.
Budanov’s appeal for early release was his fifth, with all of his earlier requests rejected. The Ulyanovsk court’s decision to release him prompted large-scale protests last month in Grozny.
Human rights community in shock
The human rights community is shocked by this outrageous killing of a famous lawyer in the Center of Moscow in the blaze of the day. According to Ljubov Vinodradova, the Executive Director of the Independent Psychiatric Association of the Russian Federation, “Undoubtedly, this is a yet another political murder, comparable with the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. We collaborated with Stanislav on Budanov’s case and know him as an expert of human rights and a very courageous person who devoted his life to the protection of human rights. It’s a cruel outrageous assassination aimed at intimidation of lawyers, human right activists and journalists, and at destabilization of the situation in the country. The most important thing now is a proper response of the authorities.” Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the Chairwoman of Moscow Helsinki Group, thinks “this is a dishonor for the country.”
