Paul Goble
Staunton, March 10 – The Russian judge in the Essentuki trial of the Ingush Seven has allowed Zarifa Sautiyeva, the only woman among them, to transfer from a detention center to house arrest as the trial proceeds. She has been in such a center since July 2020, and many have sought her release on humanitarian grounds.
Her lawyer, Dzhabrail Kuriyev, says she won’t in fact go home but rather will remain an apartment he has arranged for her in Essentuki so that she can come to court for future sessions (mbk-news.appspot.com/news/sud-perevel-sautievu/, kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/361627/ and fortanga.org/2021/03/zarifa-sautieva-otpushhena-iz-pod-strazhi-vopreki-trebovaniyam-obvineniya/).
Prior to her release, a secret prosecution witness said Sautiyeva had urged participants in the March 2019 protest to attack the police; but he couldn’t identify her, and her lawyer said the suggestion that an Ingush woman would do that was inconsistent with “the mentality of the Ingush” (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/361604/ and capost.media/news/politika/svidetel-zayavil-chto-figurantka-ingushskoy-bolotki-sautieva-napala-na-silovikov/).
Also at the hearing of the case today, “more than 25 witnesses” spoke on behalf of the defendants. That portion of the hearing was open and so their remarks are being widely reported by independent media outlets in the republic and broader region (fortanga.org/2021/03/bolee-25-svidetelej-vystupili-v-polzu-liderov-ingushskogo-protesta/).
It is entirely possible and may even be likely that the court decided to release Sautiyeva to distract attention from their testimony which further shows that the prosecution has no case.
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