Protest Against Chechnya Genocide

Russia to Shut the Mission of Europeans in Chechnya
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

MOSCOW, Dec. 31 — Russia announced today that it would shut down the mission in Chechnya of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ending any permanent international monitoring in the republic after the mission's mandate expires tonight.

Also today, a Russian military court acquitted an army colonel, Yuri D. Budanov, who was accused of murdering an 18-year-old woman in Chechnya nearly three years ago. The move ended a long, contentious trial that was considered a test of the country's willingness to prosecute abuses by the military.

Representatives of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation, which is devoted to managing conflicts and other crises across Europe and Central Asia, negotiated intensely to renew the mission. But Russian officials insisted that the mandate be limited to providing relief aid.

The small mission, in the northwestern Chechen city of Znamenskoye, has overseen dozens of relief and economic projects, but the group has also criticized Russian forces for abuses against civilians.

Human Rights Watch in New York said the Russian decision, following the closure of Chechen refugee camps in the Russian region bordering Chechnya, "raises serious human rights concerns."

"Closing down the O.S.C.E. mission is part of Russia's strategy to cut off scrutiny of human rights conditions in Chechnya and portray the situation as normalizing," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

Rights advocates in Russia were similarly dismayed over the acquittal of Colonel Budanov, which followed a finding by psychiatrists that he was temporarily insane when he seized Elza Kungayeva from her home, took her to his quarters, cut off her clothes with a knife, beat her and then strangled her before ordering her body hidden.

The court in Rostov, in southern Russia, ordered Colonel Budanov to undergo psychiatric treatment, but it was not clear for how long.

"What can be said about justice in Chechnya?" Arsen Sakalov, a leader of the Chechnya Justice Initiative, a legal advocacy organization, said in an interview from the neighboring republic, Ingushetia. "Everything that happens proves that there is no justice there."

In a case that had attracted intense scrutiny, the verdict appeared timed to minimize public attention. The court announced its decision late this afternoon after many Russians had already left work to devote themselves to New Year's Eve, the most thoroughly observed of holidays here. Wednesday and Thursday are public holidays.

The parents of the dead woman did not attend the proceedings today. They now live in a Chechen refugee camp near Ingushetia's capital and could not be immediately reached for comment. The family's lawyer, Abdullah Khamsayev, said he would continue to press for Colonel Budanov's prosecution, appealing to Russia's highest court and, possibly, to the European Court of Justice.

Russian forces have been repeatedly accused of grave abuses during the war in Chechnya, but few have ever been seriously investigated, let alone prosecuted, according to Russian and international rights groups.

Colonel Budanov was the highest-ranking officer tried on criminal charges stemming from those abuses. The case against him dragged on for more than two years.

The colonel and his lawyers acknowledged that he had killed Ms. Kungayeva but said he did so in an emotional rage, believing that she was a sniper who had killed members of his unit. He had been drinking heavily. Charges that he had also raped her were dropped early on, even though an initial autopsy concluded that she had been raped.

Late last week, an assistant to the chief military prosecutor, Col. Aleksandr A. Derbenev, questioned the psychiatric evaluations, saying he believed that Colonel Budanov was in control of his actions. The Kungayev family's lawyer also argued that the fact he ordered subordinates to bury Ms. Kungayeva's body indicated that he knew he had committed a crime.

Colonel Derbenev called on the court to sentence Col. Budanov to 12 years in prison for murder; if convicted, he faced a maximum of 20 years.

Despite public outrage over the killing, Colonel Budanov won broad sympathy and support, especially from active and retired military leaders, who argued that he was unfairly prosecuted for extremes that occurred in war.

Asked how an officer suffering from insanity could have been allowed to serve in the army, Arkady G. Baskayev, a former commander now in Parliament, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station today, "The fact is that in Chechnya and the war there you have particular conditions in which very different things happen."