Russian Court Continues to Deny Rights of Defendants in Ingush Protest Case

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 7 – Holding a trial in which the accused are in one location, some of their lawyers in another, and the judge and court officials in still a third is a situation rife with dangers. But the powers that be in the case of the Ingush protest trial are not adapting to this but using it to deny the rights of the accused.

            The Russian court rejected calls to delay the hearing until all the lawyers could be present, thus depriving the seven accused of their right to representation, and insisted that the hearings which are taking place outside of Ingushetia go ahead via video conferencing (fortanga.org/2020/12/sud-otkazalsya-izmenit-meru-presecheniya-figurantam-ingushskogo-dela/).

            Given the importance of this trial of the seven leaders of the March 2019 protests, such procedural errors acquire greater importance and are certain to increase the anger among the Ingush population about what Moscow and Magas are doing as the trial, predicted to continue over the next several weeks, proceeds.

            Most Ingush recognize that the charges are fake, but if the powers that be compound that by orchestrating the trial in such illegal ways, Ingush may very well express their anger in the streets, something that could give the authorities an occasion to crack down but only at the risk of intensifying the political opposition in that North Caucasus republic.

            Meanwhile, there were two other developments in the courtrooms of the North Caucasus that affected Ingush defendants. Zakri Bopkhoyev was found guilty by a Stavropol court for hitting siloviki during the Magas protest in March 2019, sentenced to six months in prison but released because of time served (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/357329/).

            And in what many hope will be a precedent, prison officials are allowing the relatives of one Ingush detainee, Akhmed-Khadzhi Barakhoyev, the opportunity to visit him. In the past, the powers have denied that, although they have allowed relatives and friends to drop off assistance packages of food and medicine (fortanga.org/2020/12/ingushskim-aktivistam-razresheno-videtsya-s-rodstvennikami/).