The Perfect Symbol of Putin Justice: Man without Hands Convicted of Beating a Policeman

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 27 – It is difficult to imagine a more absurd but accurate picture of justice under Vladimir Putin than the conviction of a man in Kabardino-Balkaria without hands for supposedly beating a policeman and then having his provisional sentence of two years in the camps confirmed on appeal.

            At his trial, lawyers for Aslan Iritov, who has no hands, provided video evidence showing that the police illegally broke into his house and that he lacks the physical capacity to beat anyone, evidence the court simply ignored (doshdu.com/ostavlen-v-sile-prigovor-bezrukomu-obshhestvenniku-iz-kbr-za-izbienie-policejskogo/).

            And making this case even more emblematic of Putin justice, Iritov says that he has been persecuted by the authorities for trying to defend the rights of people in his republic against well-connected people who want to take the land away from those people in order to make more money for themselves.