Video of March 2019 Meeting Shows None of the Ingush Seven Committed Crimes They’re Accused Of

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 8 – At today’s session of the Essentuki court in which the trial of the Ingush Seven is taking place, the government showed a video tape long in its possession of the March 2019 meeting. It shows that none of the seven is guilty of the charges against them and that instead, unlike the police, they all tried to calm the situation, defense lawyers say.

            This is the latest indication that on its merits, the government’s case continues to collapse. Again and again since the trial began at the end of law year, government witnesses have either denied any knowledge about the alleged crimes or failed to be able to identify the defendants.

            But now, in what should be the best possible evidence that the Ingush Seven are innocent, the government itself has presented a video showing that the situation in Magas on March 27, 2019, was entirely different than prosecutors have claimed in statement after statement (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/364750/).

            Unfortunately, facts and evidence have little to do with the sentences handed down in Russian courtrooms where the judges and the prosecutors appear to work according to a script that ignores everything they want to ignore and asserts as fact things for which no evidence is available. 

            The judges ignore the rights of defendants in other ways. Repeatedly in this case as in others, they have denied requests that defendants be examined by doctors to ensure that medical problems which have developed or intensified during the months in confinement are addressed. Again today, the Essentuki judge refused requests for that in this case.

            The next session of the Ingush Seven trial will be on June 15.

            In another Ingush development today, siloviki searched the house of an imam of the village of Sredniye Achaluki, an act of intimidation  that follows recent moves by Magas against the republic mufti and his allies (bakdar.org/siloviki-prishli-s-obyskom-v-dom-imama-ingushskogo-sela-srednie-achaluki/ and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/06/having-banned-ingush-republic-muftiate.html).