Watchdog

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- A Kazakh judge who freed a Russian businessman who had been convicted of ordering a murder is on trial herself.

Kuplash Otemisova, 56, was arrested in September and charged with issuing a "wrong ruling" after she decided in August that a 12-year sentence imposed against Aleksandr Sutyaginsky in March 2013 should be replaced by a suspended sentence of six years since the killing never took place.

Sutyaginsky, a businessman from the Siberian city of Omsk, was an active presence in Kazakhstan and often seen at ceremonies with top Kazakh and Russian officials.

Sutyaginsky fled to Russia after his release.

Otemisova, whose trial started March 26, faces up to seven years in jail if found guilty.

Otemisova's lawyer, Vladimir Popov, told RFE/RL that the charges against Otemisova violate her rights as a judge.

YEREVAN -- The trial of a retired Armenian military officer who achieved prominence for his activities on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh war veterans is starting in Yerevan on March 26.

Retired Colonel Volodya Avetisian, who took part in the war over Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region in the 1990s, was arrested in September and charged with fraud and bribe-taking.

Avetisian's supporters have staged several protest actions since his arrest, demanding his immediate release.

They insist Avetisian's arrest and the charges against him are in retaliation for protests he launched in May 2013 on Yerevan's Liberty Square to demand the government solve social problems faced by Nagorno-Karabakh war veterans.