Lawyers name condition for transferring Musaeva's trial outside of Chechnya

Judges of the Chechen Supreme Court (SC) can use self-withdrawal as a trick to avoid participating in the trial of Zarema Musaeva; and in case of self-withdrawal of the entire court composition, the territorial jurisdiction of the case can be changed, the lawyers believe. There are practically no chances for this, since authorities will manage to find a judge who had not worked with Musaeva's husband and who will pronounce a guilty verdict, Ruslan Kutaev, an activist and the President of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations, is sure.

On February 1, Musaeva was accused of attacking a law enforcer and was arrested until April 27. An ambulance was called several times to the court and the SIZO (pre-trial prison), where she is kept. On April 19, Judge Dmitry Gorbovtsov withdrew himself from Musaeva's case, referring to his close relationship with her husband, a former federal judge, Saidi Yangulbaev.

A judge's close relationship with the defendant may be the reason for a biased investigation, said Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer at the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"*.

She believes that Chechen judges may use self-withdrawal as a ploy. "More or less adequate judges, if there are any of them left in Chechnya, who don't want to oppose the position of Chechen authorities, will use self-withdrawal as a trick to avoid sentencing Musaeva," Ms Agaltsova has suggested.

Judge Gorbovtsov decided to act humanely, said Mr Kutaev, who is sure that Musaeva's trial will not be transferred outside Chechnya.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that members of the Yangulbaev family had failed to receive any investigators' reaction to their applications about threats and accusations of incitement of hatred and slander from the top-ranking Chechen officials.