The Hasuhanov case was heard behind closed doors and at great speed, from January 14 to February 25, 2003, in the Supreme Court of the Republic of North Ossetia—Alaniya, Judge Valerii Dzhioyev presiding. The court found nothing untoward—not in the fact that the accused had had no access to a lawyer for six months, or that the lawyer invited to act on his behalf had been chosen by those who had been beating his client, or that there was no information on the whereabouts of the accused between April 20 and 27. The court noted that he had been tortured but had no comment to make on the subject. Here is a quote from the verdict:
Hasuhanov made no admission of guilt during the investigation but under physical and psychological pressure from officers of the FSB was forced to sign previously prepared records of the interrogations.
“You have said that violent means were used against you,” the judge told Hasuhanov. “Can you give the names of those who used violent means against you?”
“I cannot give their names because I do not know them.”
The court passed over this detail, since the torturers had failed to identify themselves to their victim. It even refused to commission a medical report, despite the fact that the accused had a dent in his skull. The court confined itself to asking Tebloev, the director of the timber factory, whether Hasuhanov had stayed in his hospital section. He replied, “Yes. He was there from May 3 until September 2002 with a broken rib cage.” The court took this information in stride. To quote again from the verdict:
At the court hearing the accused, Hasuhanov, did not admit to being guilty of the crimes committed. He stated that he considered it his duty to carry out certain requests and missions for the legally elected President Maskhadov. He denied making preparations for the committing of terrorist acts or providing financial resources for field commanders. He acknowledged only that he authenticated certain orders and instructions of Maskhadov, annotating them “True copy” in his own hand.
Was that it?
Yes, that was it. The sentence was twelve years in a strict-regime labor camp without eligibility for amnesty. The prisoner’s final comment was, “I wish to state that I have no intention of repudiating my beliefs. I consider what is going on in Chechnya to be a flagrant violation of people’s rights. Nobody makes any attempt to catch the real criminals. While the present situation continues, there will be many more people like me in the dock.”
THE SHROUD OF darkness from which we spent several decades during the Soviet era trying to free ourselves is enveloping us again. More and more stories are heard of the FSB using torture to fabricate cases to suit its ideological needs, implicating the courts and the prosecutor’s office as its accomplices. This practice is now the rule rather than the exception. We can no longer pretend that the occurrences are random.
The implication is that our constitution is on its deathbed, in spite of the guarantees intended to safeguard it, and the FSB is in charge of the funeral arrangements.
When I learned that Hasuhanov had been brought to the notorious Krasnaya Presnya transit prison in Moscow, a kind of distribution center from which those already sentenced are sent off in convoys to other parts of the country, I rang the Moscow office of the International Red Cross. Those who work there are among the few people allowed to visit particular prisoners. I called because I knew that after the torture Hasuhanov had endured, he was in poor health indeed. I asked the agency to visit him in Krasnaya Presnya, to provide him with medicine, to ask the prison authorities to ensure that he received treatment, and to get their consent for regular visits.
A week passed, during which the Moscow office of the IRC considered my appeal. Then the charity rejected the request, mumbling something about the situation being “very complicated.”[5]
THE PRECEDENT OF COLONEL BUDANOV
On July 25, 2003, in a North Caucasus district military court in Rostov-on-Don, sentence was finally passed on Yury Budanov, a combatant in the first and second Chechen wars and recipient of two Orders of Valor. He was sentenced to ten years in a strict-regime labor camp for crimes committed in Chechnya in the course of the second war. He had abducted a Chechen girl, Elza Kungaeva, and murdered her in an exceptionally brutal manner. The court further resolved to strip Budanov of his rank and state awards.
As noted earlier, the Budanov case began on March 26, 2000, the day Putin was elected president; it continued for more than three years. It became a test for all of us, from the Kremlin down to the smallest villages. We tried to make sense of the soldiers and officers who, every day, had murdered, robbed, tortured, and raped in Chechnya. Were they thugs and war criminals? Or were they unflinching champions in a global war against international terror, using all the weapons at their disposal, a noble aim justifying their despicable means? The Budanov case became highly politicized, turning into a symbol of our time. Among the Russian people, many crucial events that happened in those three years, in Russia and elsewhere, were seen in the light of this case: September 11, 2001, in the United States; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the creation of an international antiterrorist coalition; terrorist acts in Russia; the seizing of hostages in Moscow in October 2002; the endless succession of Chechen women blowing themselves up; and the Palestinization of the second Chechen war.
This striking, tragic case brought our difficulties into the open. Most important, it revealed the changes that the Russian justice system has experienced under Putin and as a result of the war. The legal reform that the democrats had tried to implement and that Yeltsin had done all he could to promote collapsed under the pressure of the Budanov case; for over three years we were treated to a demonstration of the fact that we did not have an independent judiciary. Instead, the judicial system took its marching orders from the Kremlin. Moreover, we discovered that a majority of the population saw nothing out of the ordinary in this state of affairs. Today’s Russian, brainwashed by propaganda, has largely reverted to Bolshevik thinking.
On July 25, Kungaeva’s parents—who, more than most, understood what was going on—did not even bother to attend the court. They were certain the man who had butchered their daughter would be acquitted.
But then a miracle occurred, both a miracle and a courageous act by Judge Vladimir Bukreev. The judge dared to find Budanov guilty and, furthermore, to sentence him to a far-from-token period of detention. Bukreev thereby set himself against the military establishment, which had been actively working on Budanov’s behalf. The military courts come under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, whose commander in chief is the president. Yet, despite immense pressure from the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense, Bukreev decided that Budanov should receive the sentence he merited. In the process, however, the judge showed beyond a doubt that the judicial system is fully in thrall to the politicians.
To dispel the myths surrounding the Budanov case, I will quote from the indictment. Despite the dry language of the prosecutor’s office, the following excerpts testify more eloquently to the climate of the second Chechen war than many journalists could. They convey the situation in units deployed in the “Zone of Antiterrorist Operations,” where anarchy rules. Lawlessness was the ultimate cause of the crimes committed by Yury Budanov, colonel of a tank regiment and commander of an elite army unit, a graduate of the military academy who had been awarded the country’s highest honors for his distinguished service.
5
The Red Cross is often unable to carry out its functions because the Russian authorities frequently withhold permission for prison visits.