MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of an alleged Chechen rebel who supporters say worked from his jail cell to free kidnapped people in the breakaway republic.
Lecha Islamov's case was sent back to a lower court for retrial. He had been convicted earlier this year of kidnapping and participation in illegal armed groups.
Supreme Court spokesman Pavel Odintsov said the court ruled that the case had not been properly investigated. He said the judges did not elaborate.
Vyacheslav Izmailov, a journalist at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, took some of the credit for the decision. He said he started working to free Islamov when the alleged militant used his authority in Chechnya to help free Svetlana Kuzmina, a Russian woman who was kidnapped in Chechnya and held for ransom for more than two years.
From his jail cell, Islamov wrote to rebel commander Ruslan Gelayev, who ordered the kidnappers to release Kuzmina, Izmailov said. She was freed in August 2001.
Islamov's lawyer Nodar Duishvili said on TVS television that prosecutors had suggested dropping the kidnapping charge.
That would leave only a charge of participating in illegal armed groups. Izmailov said he would be hard-pressed to help Islamov with that one, since he has publicly boasted about being a leading rebel.
Since the first 1994-96 war in Chechnya, the region has become a center for kid-napping. Government officials, journalists, activists and foreign aid workers have all been held, in most cases for ransom.