Yury Budanov, a former commander of the 160th tank regiment during the second campaign in Chechnya, was convicted of murdering 18-year-old Chechen girl Elsa Kungayeva in summer 2000.
Budanov admitted killing Kungayeva, but claimed temporary insanity, saying he strangled her in a fit of rage because he thought she was a sniper.
Nikolai Zhukov, the head of the local department of the Russian Penitentiary Service, told a news conference: "Budanov, who has a good record at a penal colony in the Ulyanovsk Region [in central Russia], can seek a release on parole under the law." He added that under the law a convict could be considered parole after serving two-thirds of his or her sentence. Budanov has been in custody since being arrested in 2000.
Budanov's conviction came after a lengthy legal process that saw a retrial, numerous psychiatric reports, and was then followed by an appeal for clemency from the president. Society was split over the matter, as human rights activists sought his conviction, while other groups, including representatives of the army, supported him.
In December 2002, a court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don accepted Budanov's defense and acquitted him, but Russia's Supreme Court overruled that verdict in February 2003 and ordered a retrial.
In July 2003, the military tribunal of the North Caucasus Military District sentenced Budanov to 10 years and stripped of all of his officer's decorations after a two-year trial.
In September 2004, the then governor of the Ulyanovsk Region, General Vladimir Shamanov, who commanded the 58th Caucasian Army during Chechen campaigns, signed an appeal to seek a pardon for his former subordinate. The appeal was sent to President Vladimir Putin, as the supreme commander of the Russian Armed Forces. As a governor, Shamanov was entitled to appeal to the president for pardoning any criminal serving his term in prison camps in his territory.
The appeal was turned down. The Kremlin said the verdict was the correct decision that did not represent a blow to the Russian army but punished the people who tarnished its reputation.
