WITNESSES GIVE UP ON BUDANOV TRIAL.

On June 24, the trial in a military court in Rostov-on-Don of Colonel Yury Budanov, charged with strangling a young Chechen woman in March of 2000, recessed until July 1 (Strana.ru, June 24). The state prosecutor in the case, Sergei Nazarov, had on June 18 demanded an exceedingly light sentence of three years for Budanov and had also “immediately asked that Budanov be amnestied” (Gazeta.ru, June 18). On June 27, lawyers for the family of the 18-year-old victim, El’za Kungaeva, “said that they expected the defendant to be set free” and added that “they would no longer participate in [Budanov’s] trial because they had been treated unfairly by the court” (AP, June 27).