Archive: Russian Colonel Guilty of Murder

In the first case holding a high-ranking officer accountable for abuses in war-torn Chechnya, a Russian colonel was convicted Friday and sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and murdering an 18-year-old Chechen woman.

Col. Yuri Budanov was also stripped of his rank and all military honors. His conduct, originally held up as an example of the helplessness of Chechen civilians against Russian military might, eventually forced the army to account for human rights violations in the rebellious southern republic.

“It is not yet enough to make them think twice before they continue their reign of lawlessness in Chechnya, but let’s hope it is the beginning,” Tatyana I. Kasatkina, executive director of the human rights group Memorial, said after the verdict.

Both sides said they would appeal the sentence. Budanov’s lawyer said it was too harsh for an act the colonel claimed was committed during a fit of rage. The young woman’s family said a murder conviction warrants stiffer punishment.

“In a country where a street hooligan sometimes can get five years for his actions, a murderer gets away with 10,” said Abdulla Khamzayev, representing the family of the woman, Elza Kungayeva.

“Ten years for a human life,” Kasatkina said. “It is better than nothing. But for a majority of residents of Chechnya it once again demonstrated that the price of a life of a Chechen is much cheaper than the price of a life of a Russian citizen outside Chechnya.”

The fact that criminal charges were filed at all was unusual. International organizations have complained for years of kidnappings, killings and other abuses committed by the Russian military in Chechnya. Military leaders have countered that their forces have faced worse violence at the hands of Chechen rebels during the long-running conflict.

Kungayeva’s family said Russian soldiers kidnapped the woman from her home in the Chechen village of Tangi in March 2000, and she is believed to have spent most of her last hours in Budanov’s tent.

Budanov, a former tank regiment commander, was originally charged with sexual assault as well. But that charge was dropped when another soldier confessed to violating the woman’s body after her death.

The colonel said that he was interrogating Kungayeva in his tent, believing her to be a sniper who had killed some of his fellow servicemen, then lost control and killed her when she insulted him.

A military court in January cleared Budanov of criminal responsibility based on psychiatric findings that he was temporarily insane when the crime was committed. But the Supreme Court overturned that ruling in February and ordered a new trial.

A new team of psychiatric examiners, including experts from both the prosecution and defense, concluded that Budanov was in full command of his actions, though in a “highly agitated state.”

During the second trial, Budanov made a show of ignoring the proceedings. He plugged his ears with cotton balls and read a book. Khamzayev said the officer was openly contemptuous of the victim’s parents throughout the proceedings.

“Imagine what the mother and father had to go through ... every time they saw this murderer cynically smiling at them from the cage, and many times openly threatening to kill them when he is free,” Khamzayev said in a telephone interview.

There was little official reaction to the verdict, but Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, called the verdict “a fair decision” that was very important for Russian society.

“It has a tremendous significance for the residents of the Chechen republic,” Yastrzhembsky told Echo of Moscow radio.

*

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.