Yuri Budanov

Budanov was born in 1963 in Khartsyzk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. He graduated from the Tank Military School in Kharkiv and went on officer career in the Soviet Army, particularly, serving with the Soviet base in Hungary.

At the fall of the Soviet Union, Budanov was serving in Belarus, but he refused Belarusian citizenship and was transferred to the Siberian Military District, and then to Chechnya. In 1999 Budanov graduated from the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy, receiving the rank of Guards Colonel.

As noted in the medical expertise for Elza Kungaeva's murder trial by Dr. Stuart Turner, Royal College of Psychiatrists in London, Budanov participated in a military operation in the Argun River gorge in January of 2000, where more than half of his regiment officers were killed, supposedly from sniper fire.[5][6]

He was home for a leave in February of 2000, where had talked about the killed officers in the Argun River gorge with his family, showed photographs of the fallen, looked nervous, depressive (from Stuart Turner expertise).[5][6]

According to the father of Elza Kungaeva, Budanov's victim, Budanov's tank regiment had been encamped just outside Tangi-Chu since February 2000, and Budanov himself had a notorious reputation among villagers. About ten days before the murder, Budanov reportedly arbitrarily searched and looted several homes in Tangi Chu, and two days before the incident he reportedly looted and threatened to torch several other homes.[7]

From 2001 to 2003, Russian courts tried Colonel Yuri Budanov on the charges of March 27, 2000, kidnapping, rape (an allegation later withdrawn by the prosecution[8]) and brutal murder of Elza Kungaeva, an 18-year-old Chechen woman whom Budanov alleged of being a sniper for Chechen rebels. He admitted killing her in a fit of rage, but denied the rape charges.[9]

He was assassinated by Yusup-Khadzhi Temirkhanov on 10 June 2011 in Moscow, Russia.

Budanov was arrested on March 29, 2000. According to press reports, Budanov claimed that Kungaeva was a suspected sniper, and that he had gone into a rage while questioning her.[9]

Colonel-General Anatoly Kvashnin, then chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, appeared on national television to announce to President Vladimir Putin and the nation the arrest of Budanov in the grisly case. Kvashnin accused Budanov of "humiliating" and murdering Kungayeva, and denounced the colonel's behavior as "barbaric and "disgraceful."[8]

In a stark contrast, Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov, who was Budanov's commanding officer, exhibited strong sympathy towards him. He said that Budanov was one of his best commanders and offered this challenge: "To [Budanov's] enemies I say: Don't put your paws on the image of a Russian soldier and officer."[10]

The Chechen rebels offered to exchange nine recent OMON special police captives for Budanov.[11] After the Russian side refused the offer, the prisoners were executed on the morning of April 4, 2000.[12]

In relation to the case of Kungayeva, Budanov was charged with three crimes: kidnapping resulting in death, abuse of office accompanied by violence with serious consequences, and murder of an abductee.[13] No charges have been brought expressly for the beating and torture Kungaeva endured prior to her death. He was also charged in the beating up of a subordinate officer, threatening superior officers with a weapon, and other crimes.[14]

Budanov claimed that he detained Kungaeva on suspicion of being a sniper, and that he killed her during interrogation. The investigation, however, reportedly found that no member of the Kungaev family had in any way been suspected of involvement in the anti-Russian activity.

Budanov used his official position and a combat vehicle to remove Kungaeva from her home, and detained Kungaeva at a military installation; he was thus charged with exceeding his official position with violence resulting in serious consequences, which is punishable by three to ten years of imprisonment (article 286.3 of the criminal code).

The forensic physician, a Captain in the Russian military medical service, found three tears in her hymen and one in the mucous membrane of her rectum, and the report concludes that she was penetrated anally and vaginally by a blunt object before death.[15]

Three of Budanov's subordinates, Sergeants Li En Shou and Grigoriev and a Private Yegorev, were found responsible.[15] Charges against all three were simultaneously brought and dropped under the May 26, 2000 amnesty law.[15]

The trial began on April 9, 2003, in Rostov-on-Don. Legal proceedings against Budanov, who underwent several retrials, lasted a total of 2 years and 3 months.[16]

Witnesses included Yahyayev, the person in the town administration, who according to Budanov had given him the picture representing Chechen snipers. However, Yahyayev said he had given no such picture to Budanov.[17] General Shamanov came to defend Budanov during trial. He expressed his solidarity with the defendant, as did Colonel-General Gennady Troshev and numerous other Russian soldiers and civilians who picketed the court. According to a poll, 50% of the Russians asked supported the demands of picketers to release Colonel Budanov from custody; 19% did not support these demands.[18]

In a controversial decision, Budanov was initially found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity on December 31, 2002, and committed to a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation and the length of the treatment would have been decided by his doctor.[14]

However, in the beginning of March 2003 the supreme court invalidated the sentence and ordered a new trial. This took place in the same place but with a new judge. The sentence of 10 years of imprisonment was given on July 25, 2003.[14]

The judge who convicted Budanov, Vladimir Bukreyev, himself was convicted of bribe-taking and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on July 6, 2009.[19]