Update: Kheda (Elza) Kungaeva - Success in the battle against impunity

Kheda Kungaeva’s parents with photographs of their daughter as they remember her and as she was found. © Paula Allen

On 25 July 2003, a verdict was reached in the trial of Yurii Budanov who was charged with the kidnapping and murder of Kheda Kungaeva. Yurii Budanov was found guilty, on appeal, of all charges against him (kidnapping, murder, and exceeding the authority of his office) and has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in a high security prison. The court has also stripped him of his military rank and all awards.

Eighteen-year-old Kheda Kungaeva was taken from her home in March 2000 by Yurii Budanov and dragged off to his tent for interrogation on suspicion of being a sniper. She was tortured and there was evidence that she’d been raped before she met her death. The rape charges had been dropped after his subordinates testified that Budanov had violated Kheda Kungaeva’s body after her death. On December 31, 2002 the North Caucasian military court in Rostov-on-Don found Yurii Budanov not criminally responsible for the murder of Chechen Kheda Kungaeva, as psychiatric tests conducted by specialists from Russia’s leading Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry ruled that at the time of the murder the colonel was ''temporarily insane''. The prosecutors filed an appeal in the case, joining forces with the victim’s relatives in their determination to keep the colonel behind bars.

Yurii Budanov confessed to killing Kheda Kungaeva, but alleged that he did so in a “state of temporary insanity”. He was charged with murder, kidnapping and abuse of power and was, to AI’s knowledge, the first Russian officer to be tried for serious crimes against civilians in Chechnya since the renewed conflict began in 1999.

Yurii Budanov's lawyer Aleksei Dulimov has said that he will lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court against the sentence as he thinks that the court's ruling regarding the charges of "abuse of office" and "kidnapping" – are groundless. Aleksei Dulimov thinks that Budanov had the right to acquittal on these counts.

Although Yurii Budanov has admitted killing Kheda Kungaeva, he still enjoys public and military support. For example, during the first week of Colonel Budanov’s trial, General Vladimir Shamanov came to the court to shake hands with him. This attitude is indicative of the huge obstacles victims of grave human rights violations in the Chechen Republic and their relatives face in gaining justice.

Kheda Kungaeva’s case was featured in the launch report of Amnesty International's Russia campaign and has been the subject of appeals by AI sections and members worldwide.