YESENTUKI, Stavropol Territory. Feb 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The North Caucasus department of the Russian prosecutor general's office has completed investigation into preparations for coup d'etat in the Karachayevo-Cherkessian and Kabardino-Balkarian autonomous republics, a spokesman for the department told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The defendants started studying the case on Thursday, the spokesman said. "If the defendants and their lawyers do not delay the studying of the materials deliberately, the case may be submitted to court already in a week," the department's senior investigator Igor Tkachev said.
Charges are brought against 17 residents of both autonomous republics, who underwent special training in military camps in Chechnya. "The main role in involvement of the defendants in the criminal community was played by Wahhabi followers who inflame religious fanaticism in the region," Tkache added.
All people involved in the case were noticed by law- enforcement agencies in the course of the investigation of terrorist acts in Mineralnye Vody, Yessentuki and Karachayevo- Cherkessia. Khyzyr Salpagarov, a leader of the criminal group, and his supporters were arrested in August last year. Their case will be tried separately.
All members of the gang are charged with establishment of a criminal community, organization of and involvement in an illegal armed formation, public appeals to power take-over, operations aimed at violent assumption of power and organization of an armed mutiny.