16 August 2017, Wednesday

The Ingushetia Supreme Court freed Mukharbek Yevloyev and his accomplice Murad Paragulgov, convicted in February 2017 for the abduction of Yelizaveta Aliyeva, after examining appeals lodged by Yevloyev and Paragulgov’s lawyers.

The Court overturned the sentence on the basis of a note to Article 126 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (abduction of a person): if the criminals voluntarily release the abducted person they are freed from liability. The Court considered that Yevloyev and Paragulgov voluntarily released the abducted persons. 

Lawyer Vitaly Zubchenko, who works with Justice Initiative, said in his comments that assessment of the voluntary or involuntary nature of a decision not to go ahead with the crime is part of the circumstances of the case. In its earlier examination, the court of first instance concluded that the defendants were guilty. The first appeal court also examined the circumstances, including the issue of voluntary nature, and upheld the sentence.   

“In the next round of the appeals process, the circumstances of the case could not be interpreted any differently to what had been established by the lower courts”, Zubchenko said. “The court’s duty was to examine procedural violations alone, but it went further than what the Criminal-Procedural Code allows. We will complain to the Supreme Court for violation of procedural law”, he said.  

The court upheld the second sentence under Article 139 of the Criminal Code (forced entry into a private home). Furthermore, the investigation suspects that Yevloyev murdered his wife Maryem Aliyeva.   

More details on the Aliyeva sisters’ case can be found on our organization’s website under the tag Maryem Aliyeva.


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