Eduard Ulman: I relied on this amnesty

Today, the North-Caucasian Military Tribunal has resumed the trial on the case of Ulman and three special fighters of the Chief Reconnaissance Agency ("GRU") accused of murdering Chechnya citizens. The parties to the case arrived to preliminary hearing, but the session was brief. It turned out that Elena Dzyuba, advocate of accused Perelevskiy (busy at another case hearings at the Supreme Court), and Natalia Vaschenko, advocate of accused Kalaganskiy (for being sick) failed to appear at the trial. According to Roman Krzhechkovskiy, Ulman's advocate, because of the absence of the defence, the parties offered postpone the date of preliminary hearing of the case. The Judge agreed and appointed October 11 for the hearing.

Murat Musaev, a representative of the victims, declared that "the defendants's advocates are deliberately protracting the trial." Eduard Ulman objected to this conclusion: "When there are some delays on our part, the victims' party is immediately claiming us for procrastination of the proceedings. However, there are documents to confirm that advocate Vaschenko is really sick."

Answering the question of the "Caucasian Knot" about the forthcoming amnesty in relation to federal troops members who committed crimes in Chechnya, Eduard Ulman said: "I relied on this amnesty. It is necessary to conciliate the partied and to finally eliminate the confrontation. I supposed that it will be not an "averaged" amnesty but a non-standard one: if it is a pardon, it should be mutual. But it was not the case. As one paper gave it, it was and amnesty for porridge cooks."

Roman Krzhechkovskiy, Ulman's advocate, asserted that from the lawyer's viewpoint, the amnesty in relation to former members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) and the amnesty in relation to federal troop's servicemen was announced on the articles of the Criminal Code, which do not cover grave and especially grave crimes. "But from the viewpoint of a common citizen, there is certain "skewness." It's hard to imagine that IAF members have escaped committing heavy crimes. Former militants would never confess them committing murders," Roman Krzhechkovskiy stated.

Murat Musaev, on the contrary, sees no skewness: "The amnesty is announced on similar articles, and there are quite a lot of federal servicemen who will escape punishment, since they had committed crimes in the territory of Chechnya, but nobody have ever proved it."