Russian Court, After Rehearing, Orders Ingush Activist Released on Basis of Time Served

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 6 – Today, a Stavropol Kray ordered that Ingush activist Ruslan Dzeytov be released on the basis of time served in pre-trial detention. The Russian court did not change the original 21-month sentence it had handed down in February when it held a second trial on order from an appeals court in Pyatigorsk.

            Dzeytov, who took part in the March 2019 protests, has been behind bars since May 2019 charged with engaging in actions that threatened but did not harm the siloviki. His lawyers had successfully gotten the courts to drop suggestions that his actions were politically motivated (fortanga.org/2020/08/na-svobodu-vyhodit-uchastnik-mitingovogo-dela-ruslan-dzejtov/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/352739/),

            Given that many Ingush activists remain behind bars with their detentions being extended again and again, one can only welcome this outcome, although it does not deserve to be called just given the invented nature of the charges and the length of time Dzeytov, 33, has been incarcerated.

            There is also another reason to be less than pleased by the way he has been treated. Despite an appellate court having ordered a new trial, the court of first instance did nothing to change the outcome, an indication that the appeals process has become nothing more than a means for the Russian courts to appeal to be dispensing justice when they are not.

            Meanwhile, in another case not involving the protests but extremely important for the Ingush people, a second resident of the republic was found guilty of stealing stones from an ancient Ingush monument. Earlier it was suggested by some that those involved were selling parts of the national heritage to a Chechen firm (fortanga.org/2020/08/vtorogo-zhitelya-ingushetii-osudili-za-hishhenie-drevnih-kamnej-iz-bashen-v-bejni/).