Prosecution’s Star ‘Secret’ Witness Against Ingush Seven Fails to Give Evidence of Their Guilt

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 29 – At today’s session of the trial of the Ingush Seven, the prosecution’s star “secret” witness took the stand but was unable to provide any useable evidence of their guilt. Indeed, his testimony was so strained that finally a defense lawyer suggested he should try just telling the truth (fortanga.org/2021/03/poterpevshij-ne-smog-podtverdit-vinu-liderov-ingushskogo-protesta/ and capost.media/news/politika/advokat-ingushskikh-aktivistov-obratilsya-k-zasekrechennym-svidetelyam-video/).

            Two of the defendants, Barakh Chemurziyev and Akhmed Barakhoyev are feeling better since they ended their hunger strike, lawyers say, although Zarifa Sautiyeva, also a defendant and the person they called the hunger strike about to protest her return to the detention center, asked that they be given medical exams. Their jailors refused (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/362308/).

Sautiyeva’s lawyer said she needed to be examined as well. It is no problem to get her any medications she needs, but unless detention center guards allow doctors to come in, there is no way to know which medications Sautiyeva or the others need or the amounts they should take.

Many of the Ingush Moscow and Magas have put in detention for long periods of time are elderly and face serious medical problems. Some of them are in fact old enough to have been born when the Ingush nation was deported to Central Asia by Stalin (fortanga.org/2021/03/kogda-papaha-na-svoej-golove-zapiski-iz-sizo-ismail-nalgiev/).

Because this week is the second anniversary of the protests that led to the arrests for which the Ingush Seven and others are now being tried, the Fortanga news agency interviewed three experts on the case, lawyer Magomed Bekov, rights activist Magomed Mustolgov, and a second rights activist Karina Moskalenko.

They were unanimous in saying that the Ingush case is “unprecedented” and is being carried out by the powers that be who despite calls for talks have proven deaf to such entreaties. As a result, the situation in the republic remains dire (fortanga.org/2021/03/eksperty-podelilis-videniem-soczialno-politicheskoj-situaczii-v-ingushetii-spustya-dva-goda-posle-mitingov/).