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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| The mitigation of Gatagazheva’s preventive measure reassured her lawyers |
| 2024-06-21 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. The court's decision to release Leila Gatagazheva on her own recognizance gave hope that criminal prosecution on charges of involvement in militants in Syria would be dropped, lawyers said. Gatagazheva is at home with her children, now she needs to restore all her documents, her relative said. As the "Caucasian Knot" reported, on June 18 it became known that the court released Leila Gatagazheva, a native of Ingushetia, accused of involvement in Syrian militants, on her own recognizance, after her house arrest expired on June 17. Leila Gatagazheva, born in 2001, is a mother of two children, she was accused of aiding terrorist activities and participating in an illegal armed group in Syria. Relatives took her at the age of 12 from Ingushetia to the Middle East and married her there when she was 13 years old. She has already served five years in prison in Iraq on a similar charge of working for Islamic State militants, said the defense, which is seeking to have the criminal case dismissed. After the court released Leyla Gatagazheva on her own recognizance, her defense has hope that the criminal prosecution against her will be dropped, said Gatagazheva’s lawyer Alaudi Musaev. “The prosecutor refused to approve the indictment. He returned the case to the investigator with the wording “to remove obstacles during the trial,” the lawyer told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. In his opinion, it is not possible to eliminate the obstacles in question. The prosecutor put forward a number of demands for corrections in Gatagazheva’s case, noted another of her lawyers, Muslim Yangulbaev. “If the investigator manages to correct them, then the case, of course, should be sent to court. Or the case can be terminated at the preliminary investigation stage,” he told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. The lawyer stated that there are doubts about the objectivity of the investigation. “If they wanted to, they would have already stopped the investigation. I had filed a statement earlier about the abuse of power by the investigators and the judge. And now a pre-investigation check is already underway,” he explained. Yangulbaev explained that if the investigation has been ongoing for more than one year, then the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, will extend it for a longer period. The investigation into the Gatagazheva case, which, according to him, is formulaic, could not be completed within one year. The lawyer stated that in order to hide the violations, the case was sent to the head of the district department of the Investigative Committee. “The director returns the case as if to eliminate shortcomings and extends the investigation period by one month. At the same time, neither the defense nor the accused are notified of this and are not familiarized with the results of the case,” the lawyer explained. He stated that the head of the investigation department for the Malgobek district did not have the right to extend the investigation, and the judge did not have the right to accept the petition for consideration. Gatagazheva’s defense, even before the end of the investigation, submitted a request for a psychological and psychiatric examination, but it was not carried out, noted another defender of Gatagazheva, Ramina Labazanova. The investigation must now carry out this examination, the lawyer said. Gatagazheva’s condition is normal, she noted. “He will be able to receive treatment and all other services,” Labazanova told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. Gatagazheva is at home, spending time with her children. She plans to undergo examination and treatment after receiving the documents, said her uncle Beslan Gatagazhev. “She needs to get a passport and other necessary documents. She didn’t have any documents when she returned. As soon as we get it, we’ll go to the local hospital for examination and treatment,” he explained to the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent. |
| Posted by:badanov |