Week in the Caucasus: review of main events of May 19-25

Events in the regions of Southern Russia and Southern Caucasus dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the end of the Caucasian War; special operation in Ingushetia, during which, according to power agents, leader of the local militants was killed; jury's verdict of guilty in Politkovskaya's murder case, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of May 19-25, 2014, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Southern Russia and Southern Caucasus hold mourning rallies and marches to mark 150 years after the end of Caucasian War

On May 20 and 21, the southern regions of Russia, Abkhazia, Georgia, and Moscow hosted events dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the end of the Caucasian War (1763-1864), which put the Adyg (Circassian) nations on the brink of extinction. The events included rallies, marches, art exhibitions and book presentations. Participants commemorated the victims with minutes of silence and lit candles.

The aul of Adil-Halk, Nogai District of Karachay-Cherkessia, opened a monument to victims of the Caucasian War; and the city of Cherkessk, the capital of the republic, held a solemn ceremony of laying a memorial stone for the future monument.

A match was held in Takhtamukai, a district centre of Adygea; and on May 20, Maikop, the capital of the republic, opened an exhibition "Caucasus in the eyes of 19th century painters", dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the end of the Caucasian War.

Ingushetia: special operation, in which, according to power agents, leader of local militants was killed

On May 24, a special operation was conducted in the Ingush village of Sagopshi, which resulted, according to preliminary data, in killing of seven persons, who were blocked by law enforcers in a private house. One of the casualties was identified as Arthur Gatagazhev, the "Emir" of Ingushetia, said Timur Bokov, the head of the department for relations with mass media of the administration of the head of Ingushetia, who added that Gatagazhev's murder had put an end to the organized underground in the republic. According to his story, Gatagazhev was involved in the murder of Akhmed Kotiev, Secretary of Security Council of Ingushetia.

Azerbaijan: ECtHR upholds Mamedov's complaint against country's Govt

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has upheld the complaint lodged against the Government of Azerbaijan for the unlawful arrest of Ilgar Mamedov, the leader of the movement "Republican Alternative" (ReAl), who was sentenced to seven years in prison as an organizer of the mass riots in the city of Ismailly. The ECtHR awarded Mamedov with a monetary compensation of 22,000 euros. At a press conference on May 23, Anne Brasseur, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), who is on her visit to Baku, urged the Azerbaijani authorities to immediately release Ilgar Mamedov.

At MCC, jurors find defendants guilty of murdering Anna Politkovskaya

Last week, the Moscow City Court (MCC), which considers the murder case of Anna Politkovskaya, the observer of the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper, finished the pleadings; the defendants – four natives of Chechnya, brothers Rustam, Ibragim and Djabrail Makhmudov and Lom-Ali Gaitukaev, and a former Moscow militiaman Sergey Khadjikurbanov – pronounced their last pleas; and the jury rendered its verdict.

On May 19, Murad Musaev, an advocate of one of the defendants, said that the murder of Anna Politkovskaya was organized by a retired lieutenant colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, who had stopped, after making a deal with the investigation, to be treated as the organizer of the crime and was earlier sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment. In their last pleas, all the defendants refused to plead guilty. On May 20, the jury found all the five figurants guilty and deserving no leniency. Politkovskaya's children demanded to collect 5 million roubles as moral harm compensation from the defendants.

Dagestan: court convicts employee of local human rights organization

On May 21, the court in the city of Buynaksk convicted Zarema Bagavutdinova, an activist of the Dagestani Regional Public Organization (DRPO) "Pravozaschita" (Advocacy), finding her guilty of recruiting, back in November 2011, a native of Dagestan Mamma Dalgatov for participating in the armed underground. The verdict, according to which Bagavutdinova should spend five years in colony, will be appealed against, said her advocate. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" has announced Bagavutdinova to be a political prisoner and believes that the true reason for her conviction was in her activities in defending human rights.

Krasnodar Territory: prosecutor's office seeks to quash court's ruling to send ecologist Evgeny Vitishko for three years to colony

During the last week it became known that the deputy public prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory moved a petition to cancel the ruling of the Tuapse District Court prescribing to place the ecologist Evgeny Vitishko for three years into colony under the case of damaging the fence around the land plot, known as the "summer cottage" of the Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachov. According to the experts polled by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, now, the Territorial Court may decide to soften Vitishko's punishment.