The Southern District Military Court sentenced Arslan Taushev, a native of Chechnya, and Rasul Koshmanbetov, a native of Dagestan, to 23 and 24 years in a maximum-security penal colony, respectively. Both men were found guilty of participating in an attack on Pskov paratroopers during the Second Russo-Chechen War in 2000.
The defendants completely denied their guilt.
According to investigators, Taushev and Koshmanbetov were members of the Nogai Jamaat detachment. This detachment, part of an armed group commanded by Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, participated in an attack on Russian servicemen. Law enforcement agencies believe that Taushev and Koshmanbetov systematically targeted the paratroopers. The attack killed 84 of them, and wounded four.
This is not the first time citizens have been accused of involvement in the attack on the Pskov paratroopers in 2000. As human rights activists from Memorial have previously noted, "standard" testimony from relatives of Russian soldiers has been presented as witnesses in virtually all criminal cases brought against Chechen natives. Witnesses often repeated the official version of events.
