Yuri Budanov

Yuri Dmitrievich Budanov (Ю́рий Дми́триевич Буда́нов; 24 November 1963 – 10 June 2011) was a Russian military officer convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Elza Kungayeva in Chechnya.

Budanov was highly controversial in Russia: despite the conviction, Budanov enjoyed widespread support of Russian households as polled by public opinion.

At the same time, he was broadly hated in Chechnya, even by the pro-Russian Chechens.

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 (Southern Group of Forces) 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, where he appears to have commanded the 160th Guards Tank Regiment of the 5th Guards Tank Division 1999–2001, and then to Chechnya.

In 1999 Budanov graduated from the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy, receiving the rank of Guards Colonel.

As noted in his later 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 2000, where more than half of his regiment officers were killed, supposedly from sniper fire.

He was home for a leave in February 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).

The father of Elza Kungayeva reported that Budanov had been encamped with his tank regiment outside the village of Tangi-Chu in the Urus-Martanovsky District district of the Chechen Republic since February 2000.

He had gained a notorious reputation amongst villagers, having conducted arbitrary searches and looting of several homes ten days prior to the murder.

Two days before the incident, he also reportedly looted and threatened to set fire to other homes.

On March 27, 2000, Russian forces stormed the Kungayev family home in Tangi-Chu.

Budanov and three soldiers took Elza Kungayeva (who went by Kheda), the eldest daughter, out of the house and drove her away in an armored personnel carrier.

Villagers then traveled to nearby Urus-Martan to search for her, and were told by a federal commander that Kungayeva had been raped and killed by drunken men.

Budanov was arrested on 29 March 2000.

According to press reports, Budanov claimed that Kungayeva was a suspected sniper, and that he had gone into a rage while questioning her.

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."

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."

The Chechen rebels offered to exchange nine recent OMON special police captives for Budanov.

After the Russian side refused the offer, the prisoners were executed on the morning of 4 April 2000.

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.

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.

Budanov used his official position and a combat vehicle to remove Kungayeva from her home, and detained Kungayeva 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.

Three of Budanov's subordinates, Sergeants Li En Shou and Grigoriev and a Private Yegorev, were found responsible.

Charges against all three were simultaneously brought and dropped under the 26 May 2000 amnesty law.

From 2001 to 2003, Russian courts tried Budanov, charged with kidnapping, rape, and murder of Kungayeva.

The rape allegation was later withdrawn by the prosecution despite the indication of an initial autopsy report.

From the start, Budanov confessed to the slaying but denied the rape (which can be considered more dishonorable than murder in Chechen culture ).

He said he was interrogating Kungayeva in his tent, believing that she was a sniper who had been shooting at his troops, and killed her in a fit of rage when she insulted him.

The trial began on 9 April 2003, in Rostov-on-Don.

Legal proceedings against Budanov, who underwent several retrials, lasted a total of 2 years and 3 months.

Witnesses included Yahyayev, the person in the town administration, who according to Budanov had given him the picture representing Chechen snipers.

In December 2008, a court in the south Russian Ulyanovsk Oblast granted a petition for early release.

After eight years in prison (of the ten years he was sentenced), he was released on parole on 15 January 2009.

On 10 June 2011, Budanov was shot dead in Moscow.