Zara Murtazalieva

Zara came to Moscow in September 2003 to find work to support her widowed mother and two younger sisters, who had just left school and had to continue their education. For this reason, she was forced to transfer to distance learning course. She found a job with an insurance company and rented a room. However, her landlady soon pressed her to move out. At this point, she met two Muscovites, Anna Kulikova and Dariya Voronova, who had recently converted to Islam; Zara met them in a mosque. The girls became friends, and Anna suggested that Zara stayed at her place. Valentina Mikhailovna Kulikova, Anna's mother, agreed to have her daughter's friend living with them, and the girl stayed with the Kulikovs for a while. Zara made a most favourable impression on Valentina Mikhailovna.

Soon, Zara, Dariya and Anna decided to live on their own. By then, Zara met Said Akhmaev, an officer from the Bureau for Fight against Organized Crime of Moscow Main Internal Affairs Department, who helped the girls in every way and even offered them a dormitory room for free. Later it turned out that Said Ñlooked afterÒ the girls on his superiorsÒ orders, and that audio and video surveillance equipment had been installed in the room they occupied. Shortly before the girls moved to the dormitory, an FSB officer visited Valentina Kulikova at work informing her that a criminal investigation had been started against Zara, and asked her permission to examine the Kulakovs' apartment in Anna and ZaraÒs absence. In the course of the search, to which Valentina Kulikova agreed, although was never shown any documents authorizing it, the secret services officers were interested only in Zara's belongings. No illegal articles were found amongst them, but the photographs the girls had taken during the New Year holidays at the Okhotny Ryad shopping centre where they often visited an internet café, generated a strange interest.

On the evening of March 4, Zara was stopped by militiamen for a document check near her work in Kitay Gorod area. She was taken to the other side of Moscow to Prospekt Vernadskogo militia department for identification, where she had her fingerprints taken. She was told that after that she would be free go. Zara washed her hands, took her handbag, and was about to leave when she noticed that her bag felt heavier than usual. The militia demanded to inspect the bag and found two packages wrapped in foil that turned out to contain 196 grams of Plastite-4 explosive.

Zara Murtazalieva was arrested and a criminal case was brought against her under article 222 part 1 of the RF Criminal Code on unlawful acquisition, storage and transportation of explosive materials. In the course of the preliminary investigation, the investigating agency put pressure on Anna Kulikova and Dariya Voronova to give evidence to the effect that Murtazalieva tried to involve them in terrorist activities and trained them to commit a terrorist act.

On October 25 2004, Valentina Kulikova came to the Civic Assistance Committee for support. She told Svetlana Gannushkina, chief of the Committee, that her daughter received threats that unless she gave the required evidence, she would figure in the criminal case not as a witness, but as an accomplice. The case, that at first was conducted by the Nikulinskaya Prosecutor's Office, due to its ÑurgencyÒ, was transferred to the Department for Investigation of Murder and Brigandage of Moscow Prosecutor's Office, and then to Moscow and Moscow region FSB Authority. To prove Murtazalieva's criminal intent to blow up the escalator in the Okhotny Ryad shopping centre, transcripts were cited of the girls' conversations covering various matters, including Islam and girls' views on the war in Chechnya. Photographs picturing, amongst other things, the shopping centreÒs escalators, were also used as evidence. This is how a Ñterrorism caseÒ of four volumes was fabricated.

Zara Murtazalieva was charged under the following articles of the RF Criminal Code:
Article 30 part 1 × planning crime and attempted crime;
Article 205 part 1 × terrorism (punishable by 8 to 12 years in prison);
Article 205 part 1 × recruiting to commit a crime of terrorist nature
(punishable by 4 to 8 years in prison);
Article 222 part 2 × illegal acquisition, storage and transportation of
explosive materials (up to 4 years in prison).

The hearing of Z. Murtazalieva's case began on December 22 2004 at 10.30 a.m. under presiding Judge M.A. Komarova at the Criminal Cases Board of Moscow City Court. The Defendant is represented by lawyer Z.T. Usmanova. When examined in court, witnesses for Prosecution A. Kulikova and D. Voronova did not corroborate their evidence given during the preliminary investigation stating that Murtazalieva attempted to make them commit a terrorist act. During the session, Judge Komarova rejected Murtazalieva's request, supported by her lawyer, to allow advocate E.Z. Ryabinina from the Civic Assistance Committee to represent her. On December 23 2004, the request was put forward again, this time in writing, and it was again rejected. In the face of the present situation, and also due to the illness of the Defence lawyer Z. T. Usmanova, the Civic Assistance Committee and Migration and Law Network of Memorial Human Rights Centre enlisted the services of lawyer V. K. Suvorov to represent Miss Murtazalieva.

On December 27 2004, the proceedings were adjourned until January 12 2005.
The Defence seeks to clear the Defendant of all the charges.