Tver: natives of Chechnya sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment

Today, the Tver Regional Court has condemned two Chechnya natives to 13 years in jail each. The main convict - Bislan Badalov - was found guilty of organizing a criminal group, kidnappings, extortions with use of violence and robberies. Advocate Abusupyan Gaitaev, Mr. Badalov's defence, has told about it to the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot."

Badalov's accomplices - Alexander Ivanov and Nikolai Uglanov, residents of the city of Udomlya of Tver Region, and Khasambek Ahmetkhanov - have been found guilty of being members of the criminal group and accessories to the crimes organized by Badalov. The former two were sentenced to 12 and 11 years of corrective camp accordingly, while Ahmetkhanov, who comes from the same locality in Chechnya as Badalov, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, since besides, he was charged of weapon possession.

Thus, according to Moscow lawyer Gaitaev, the Tver Regional Court has just iterated its verdict passed in autumn of 2005 and cancelled last summer for judicial violations by the Supreme Court of Russia. The defender finds the criminal case to be forged and the verdict illegal. He is confident that the newly passed verdict will be again cancelled by the cassation instance - the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (RF).

In the words of the advocate, on April 6 in his last plea defendant Bislan Badalov refused to confess guilty of the imputed Articles of the RF Criminal Code. He stated that his only fault had been "arrogation" that he admitted in the fight for his life.