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The Supreme Court of Kalmykia sentenced the killers
of editor-in-chief of the newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykiya
segodnya (Soviet Kalmykia Today) Larisa Yudina on
November 29 in Elista.
Yudina was killed in the summer of last year. The
majority of the mass media connected the crime with
president of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Soviet Kalmykia
Today criticized him sharply and frequently. An investigation
revealed that she was being threatened and that efforts
were being made to bribe her. The journalist was lured
into a deadly trap by an offer of documents testifying
to the embezzlement of budgetary funds by the presidential
administration. Yudina entered an apartment, where
she was knifed to death. Her body was then thrown
into a river. The crime was committed by former assistants
to Ilyumzhinov Sergei Vaskin and Vladimir Shanukov,
who had previously been convicted of the murders of
two people in excess of the need for self-defense
and of resisting arrest. The criminals were captured
within days of the murder.
The court sentenced Vaskin and Shanukov to 21 years
in prison each. Andrei Lipin received six years' imprisonment
for harboring the criminals. Tyurbyu Baskhojiev, who
acted as an intermediary, was not held criminally
accountable. The court explained that its leniency
toward Baskhojiev was due to the fact that he made
a full confession and aided in the investigation.
The defendants' lawyers stated their intention of
appealing the sentence to the Supreme Court of Russia.
In their opinion, there were procedural violations
in the investigation, in particular, the participation
of the state accuser in the investigation.
The prosecution was also dissatisfied with the sentences.
Gennady Yudin, the husband of the deceased, said that
the convicts were acting on orders and that the instigators
of the murder remain in the shadows. Yabloko leader
Grigory Yavlinsky made a similar statement (Yudina
was an activist in that organization) and promised
to take the matter of the punishment of the organizers
of the crime to the Supreme Court of Russia as well.
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