Yuri Dmitrievich Budanov was the
Russian military officer convicted by a
Russian court of
kidnapping and
murder in
Chechnya.
(24 November 1963 – 10 June 2011)
Budanov was highly controversial in Russia: despite the
conviction, Budanov enjoyed widespread support of Russian households, as polled by
public opinion.
[1] At the same time, he was broadly hated in Chechnya, even by the pro-Russian Chechens. In December 2008, a court in the south Russian
Ulyanovsk Oblast granted a petition for early release. After eight years in prison (of nine years he was sentenced), he was released on parole on 15 January 2009.
[2]On 10 June 2011 Budanov was shot dead in Moscow by an unknown perpetrator.
[3][4]Biography
Budanov was born in 1963 in
Khartsyzk,
Ukrainian SSR,
Soviet Union. He graduated from the Tank Military School in
Kharkiv and went on officer career in the
Soviet Army, particularly, serving with the Soviet base in
Hungary.
At the
fall of the Soviet Union, Budanov was serving in
Belarus, but he refused Belarusian citizenship and was transferred to the
Siberian Military District, and then to Chechnya. In 1999 Budanov graduated from the
military academy, receiving the rank of Guards Colonel.
According to the father of Budanov's victim, Budanov's
tank regiment had been encamped just outside
Tangi-Chu since February 2000, and Budanov himself had a notorious reputation among villagers. About ten days before the
murder, Budanov reportedly arbitrarily searched and
looted several homes in Tangi Chu, and two days before the incident he reportedly looted and threatened to torch several other homes.
From 2001 to 2003,
Russian courts tried Colonel Yuri Budanov on the charges of March 27, 2000,
kidnapping,
rape (an allegation later withdrawn by the
prosecution) and brutal murder of
Elza Kungaeva, an 18-year-old
Chechen girl whom Budanov alleged of being a sniper for Chechen rebels who were attacking his unit. He admitted killing her in a fit of rage, but denied the rape charges.
[5]He was assassinated on 10 June 2011 in Moscow, Russia.
Prosecution
Arrest
Budanov was arrested on March 29, 2000. According to press reports, Budanov claimed that Kungaeva was a suspected
sniper, and that he had gone into a rage while questioning her.
[5]Colonel-General Anatoly Kvashnin, then chief of the
General Staff of the
Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, appeared on national
television to announce to
President Vladimir Putin and the nation the arrest of Budanov in the grisly case. Kvashnin accused Budanov of "
humiliating" and murdering Kungayeva, and denounced the colonel's behavior as "
barbarous" and "disgraceful."
In a stark contrast,
Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov, who was Budanov's
commanding officer, exhibited strong sympathy towards him.
[citation needed] He said that Budanov was one of his best commanders and offered this challenge:
"To [Budanov's] enemies I say: Don't put your paws on the image of a Russian soldier and officer."[6]The Chechen rebels offered to exchange nine recent
OMON special police captives for Budanov.
[7] After the Russian side refused the offer, the prisoners were executed on the morning of April 4, 2000.
[8]Charges
In relation to the case of Kungayeva, Budanov was charged with three crimes: kidnapping resulting in death, abuse of office accompanied by violence with serious consequences, and murder of an abductee.
[9] No charges have been brought expressly for the beating and
torture Kungaeva endured prior to her death.
[citation needed] He was also charged in the
beating up a
subordinate officer, threatening superior officers with a weapon, and other crimes.
[citation needed]Budanov claimed that he detained Kungaeva on suspicion of being a
sniper, and that he killed her during
interrogation. The investigation, however, reportedly found that no member of the Kungaev family had in any way been suspected of involvement in the anti-Russian activity.
Budanov used his official position and a
combat vehicle to remove Kungaeva from her home, and detained Kungaeva at a
military installation; he was thus charged with exceeding his official position with violence resulting in serious consequences, which is punishable by three to ten years of imprisonment (article 286.3 of the
criminal code).
Lack of a rape prosecution
The forensic
physician, a
Captain in the Russian military medical service, found three tears in her
hymen and one in the
mucous membrane of her
rectum, and the report concludes that she was penetrated anally and vaginally by a blunt object after death.
[citation needed]Three of Budanov's subordinates,
Sergeants Li En Shou and Grigoriev and a
Private Yegorev, were found responsible.
[citation needed] Charges against all three were simultaneously brought and dropped under the May 26, 2000
amnesty law.
[citation needed]Trial
The trial began on April 9, 2003, in
Rostov-on-Don. Legal proceedings against Budanov, who underwent several retrials, lasted a total of 2 years and 3 months.
[10]Witnesses included Yahyayev, the person in the town administration, who according to Budanov had given him the picture representing Chechen snipers. However, Yahyayev said he had given no such picture to Budanov.
[11] General Shamanov came to defend Budanov during trial.
[citation needed] He expressed his solidarity with the
defendant, as did Colonel-General
Gennady Troshev and numerous other Russian soldiers and civilians who
picketed the court.
[citation needed] According to a
poll, 50% of the Russians asked supported the demands of picketers to release Colonel Budanov from custody; 19% did not support these demands.
[12]In a controversial decision, Budanov was initially found not guilty by
reason of temporary insanity on December 31, 2002, and committed to a
psychiatric hospital for further evaluation and the length of the treatment would have been decided by his doctor.
[citation needed]However, in the beginning of March 2003 the
supreme court invalidated the sentence and ordered a new trial. This took place in the same place but with a new judge. The sentence of 10 years of imprisonment was given on July 25, 2003.
[citation needed]The judge who convicted Budanov, Vladimir Bukreyev, himself was convicted of bribe-taking and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on July 6, 2009.
[13]In prison
On September 21, 2004, Shamanov, now the
Ulyanovsk regional
governor, signed a
pardon for Yury Budanov;
Interfax quoted the head of the Ulyanovsk pardons commission, Anatoly Zherebtsov, as saying that if Putin backed the recommendation, Budanov would also get back his military rank and awards.
[citation needed]The commission's decision sparked outrage in Chechnya.
"Whether in jail or freed, Budanov will remain a person who has committed a grave crime, which took the life of an innocent girl," Taus Dzhabrailov, the head of Chechnya's
parliament, told Interfax.
Ramzan Kadyrov said:
"The Ulyanovsk commission's decision is like spitting on the soul of the long-suffering Chechen people." [14] Kadyrov has also made statements that "If any of Elza's friends should meet [Budanov] I don't want to predict how they will act. The Chechen people do not consider him to be a human being, and as a war criminal, he does not deserve to be. One might be able to forgive his crime to some extent if he had killed a man. But to sexually assault a girl cannot be forgiven. He is beneath contempt. He has brought shame on the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation."
[citation needed]In February 2006 a Russian prison official announced that Budanov, who is serving his 10-year sentence, might be released early on good behaviour.
[citation needed] The Chechen regional branch of the
United Russia party addressed the
State Duma and the
Russian President with a request not to grant amnesty to Yuri Budanov.
[15] The same month, on the petition of Budanov's advocate, with account of good behaviour of the inmate, the former colonel was removed from the strict custody colony to a settlement-colony.
[16]On 24 December 2008, a court granted him a release on parole. This was the fifth attempt by Budanov's lawyers to obtain him a release on licence. Four applications before that were rejected.
[17] Victim's lawyers appealed to overturn the decision (thus the delay in release), but without success.
[17] Former colonel was released on 15 January 2009, 15 months before completion of his conviction term.
[17] The decision has been protested by Chechnya's human rights
ombudsman, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, who has accused Russian judges of "double standards" with regard to Russians and Chechens.
[18]The lawyer for the Kungayeva family,
Stanislav Markelov, who had attempted a last-minute appeal against the release of Budanov, was shot dead in Moscow on January 19, 2009 along with
Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist for
Novaya Gazeta.
[19][20] However, the investigation of Markelov's murder showеd in November 2009 that the murder was probably unrelated to this case, but committed by
Neo-Nazis as a revenge for Markelov's support of
Marxist activists as a lawyer.
[21]Assassination
Yuri Budanov was assassinated around 11:30 on June 10, 2011 in central Moscow (Hamovniki, Komsomolski prospekt), Russia. Six silenced shots were fired, four of which struck Budanov in the head. The killer escaped in a car driven by an accomplice. The car was subsequently found partially burned several blocks from the site of the attack. A gun believed to be a
Makarov PM was found with a silencer inside the car. Budanov's wife witnessed the assassination and is currently held by Russian authorities.
[22] Russian police investigators commented that the attack was carefully planned and they consider blood revenge as one of the likely motives.
[23] One witness to the murder described the driver of the car from which the six shots were fired as being "of Slavic appearance".
[24]
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