MOSCOW (AP) – A Russian court has denied early release to a Russian colonel sentenced to 10 years in prison for murdering a Chechen woman, news reports said Tuesday.
Col. Yuri Budanov was convicted in July 2003 for murdering 18-year-old Heda Kungayeva. Andrei Koshkin, the head of the Volga River region Penitentiary Department said at a news conference Tuesday that a court in the town of Dmitrovgrad had rejected Budanov’s appeal for an early release, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.
Last year, Budanov was transferred from a prison in Dmitrovgrad to a penal settlement in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk to serve the rest of his term, Koshkin said.
Budanov’s case has been closely watched in Russia as a test of how the military handles rights abuses in Chechnya. Russian prison officials said earlier that Budanov could be released before his term ends for good behavior, but the Moscow-backed administration in Chechnya strongly objected, warning that such a verdict would cause a massive outpouring of anger in the war-ravaged region.
Budanov admitted strangling Kungayeva in 2000, but said he did it in a fit of rage while interrogating her. He said he believed she was a rebel sniper.
A military court initially ruled that Budanov was temporarily insane at the time of the killing and not criminally responsible, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling and ordered a new trial that ended with his conviction.
