Court states Arakcheev's sub-machine gun unfit for examination

Today, the North-Caucasian Regional Military Court (Rostov-on-Don) has continued hearing the case of Evgeniy Khudyakov and Sergey Arakcheev, officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), accused of murdering peaceful residents of Chechnya.

The examination results of Sergey Arakcheev's sub-machine gun were reported at the trial; the examination was petitioned by the state accusation. It follows from the examination resume that the sub-machine gun "was in order and fit for shooting," however, because of high wear, the barrel is unfit for a comparative study. The experts have concluded that because of iron oxidation the traces of the barrel channels on the bullets, which can be found in the bodies of the Chechen residents killed and buried in 2003, have got destroyed during this period, which makes impossible to identify the weapon from which the bullets had been shot.

Thus, according to Liudmila Tikhomirova, a representative of the victim party who talked to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, there is no sense to demand a repeated forensic medical examination of the victims' bodies through holding their exhumation.