MOSCOW, November 2 (Itar-Tass) — Yusup Temerkhanov, who is accused of killing former Colonel Yuri Budanov, asks to try his criminal case by a court of jury.
“We filed a petition to try this criminal case by a court of jury,” his lawyer Murad Musayev told Itar-Tass.
He also noted that his client refused from giving testimony during the preliminary investigation, because he “does not trust the investigation.” “All this time he was keeping silence during the investigation, as he did not trust the investigators. Temerkhanov intends to say everything only during the trial,” Musayev explained.
Yusup Temerkhanov is accused under Article 105 Part 2 clause l of the Criminal Code for murder out of hatred and strife against a social group and under Article 222 Part 1 for the illegal circulation of weapons.
“The detectives found that on June 10, 2011 at about the noon, when Yuri Budanov was going out from the notary office, which is situated on the Komsomolsky Avenue, Temerkhanov has made eight gunshots at him from the pistol. Budanov died of wounds at the murder scene,” spokesman for the Russian Investigation Committee Vladimir Markin said. “After the murder Temerkhanov escaped in a Mitsubishi Lancer car, then set the car on fire, hoping that all the material evidence over his involvement in the crime will be destroyed in the fire,” Markin said.
“However, the fire was put out timely. As a result the detectives found in the car and confiscated numerous objects, including remaining genetic traces, which made it possible to identify the suspect later,” Markin said.
“The motive for the murder was an act of revenge for the death of his father,” he said. “The detectives found that over the death of his father in the Chechen Republic in 2000 Temerkhanov decided to kill the Russian officer, who is involved, according to him, in illegal actions during an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya,” he said. “Temerkhanov picked up Budanov as a victim, as the latter was the former commander of the 160th guards tank regiment and his name received a broad public response over the murder of a Chechen young woman in 2000,” Vladimir Markin said.
The criminal case against two accomplices of Temerkhanov was singled out and the investigation in this criminal case continues, the spokesman for the Russian Investigation Committee added.