MOSCOW - Human rights activists warned Thursday that a Russian tank commander charged with murdering an 18-year-old Chechen woman is likely to be acquitted in a high-profile trial, and said such a verdict would compromise the entire Russian legal system.

Col. Yuri Budanov is accused of killing Heda Kungayeva near her family's home in Chechnya two years ago. He is the first Russian officer to face a public trial for alleged military crimes in Chechnya, and the proceedings have been closely watched in Russia and by international human rights groups.

"The Budanov case is a landmark one not only for Chechnya, but for the entire Russian legal system," Amnesty International representative Mariana Katzarova told reporters. "If Budanov walks out of the courtroom as a hero, that would set an example of lawlessness."

Many servicemen and officers have rallied around Budanov, whose trial began in February 2001 in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and has suffered frequent delays. Budanov, who faces a first-degree murder charge, has admitted strangling Kungayeva, but says he killed her in a rage while interrogating her because he thought she was a rebel sniper.

Kungayeva's family denies she was a sniper, and says she was dragged from her home, raped, and murdered during a drunken rampage by soldiers.
Earlier this month, psychiatrists concluded that Budanov was temporarily insane when he strangled Kungayeva, pointing at head wounds he had received before the incident.

But human rights activists and independent experts said the psychiatrists' analysis lacked medical substantiation and was performed under heavy pressure from the Defense Ministry.

Independent psychiatrist Emil Gushansky, citing witnesses' testimony, told Thursday's news conference that Budanov had ordered his soldiers to guard the truck where he dragged Kungayeva while he stayed inside for more than an hour, playing a tape to muffle any sounds.

Budanov then allegedly came out and ordered his soldiers to bury the strangled woman, which Gushansky called proof that he was fully aware of his actions.

Human rights watchdogs in Russia and abroad accuse Russian troops of routinely committing atrocities in Chechnya that go unpunished, including arbitrary detentions, torture, rapes and summary executions. Russian officials respond that they properly investigate all accusations and punish culprits.

However, activists said Thursday that three-quarters of the approximately 450 official registered cases of disappearances in Chechnya have been suspended for lack of evidence.

Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial, Russia's leading human rights group, said between 1,000 and 2,000 people have disappeared in the 2 1/2-year-old Chechnya war, and most are believed to have died after suffering torture at the hands of federal authorities.

Cherkasov warned that police who serve in Chechnya are transporting such abuses to other Russian regions when their war duty is up.

"This terrible experience is being widely applied by various law enforcement structures throughout Russia, and we will all suffer from that," he said.