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Defendant Again Pleads Not Guilty In Budanov Murder Trial


Yusup Temirkhanov in the courtroom of Moscow City Court in November 2012
Yusup Temirkhanov in the courtroom of Moscow City Court in November 2012
Yusup Temerkhanov has again pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered former Russian Army Colonel Yury Budanov, who was convicted for raping and killing a Chechen girl.

The trial resumed on March 20 with a newly selected jury.

Last month, the Moscow City Court dismissed the previous jury, citing the "inability of some jurors to attend the process."

Temerkhanov's lawyer insisted then that the jury was dismissed to prevent it from acquitting his client.

Before the dismissal, a witness in the case had changed his description of the killer, saying the defendant, an ethnic Chechen, does not look like the man who shot Budanov in 2011.

Budanov was killed in Moscow two years after his early release from prison, where he had served time for killing 18-year-old Elza Kungayeva.

Based on reporting by Interfax and ITAR-TASS

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