Criminal-political scandal in South Ossetia
South Ossetia has been rocked by another criminal-political scandal after a court released former traffic police officer Filipp Tedeev, convicted of lewd acts against a minor.
Tedeev was arrested in 2024 for harassing a 15-year-old girl. He had been held in pre-trial detention ever since, but has now been released under a travel ban.
Tedeev’s release coincided with an amnesty for several inmates of Tskhinvali prison, announced by the ruling Nykhas party, led by first deputy speaker Zita Besaeva. Although Tedeev is not formally on the list of pardoned prisoners, many in the public believe the two events are connected.
Rumours suggest Tedeev is close friends with the brother of president Alan Gagloev. Last year, two friends of the president’s brother who had been arrested were also freed, only to be implicated again in a murder case soon after.
“Zita Besaeva, deputy speaker and head of the legislative committee, showed criminal negligence by initiating an amnesty without properly checking the lists. Thanks to her ‘work’, a paedophile who had served only a fraction of his term walked free. Along with her, all Nykhas deputies who voted for the decision share responsibility — they became accomplices to a tragedy,” a South Ossetian Telegram channel claimed.
In an attempt to calm public anger, South Ossetia’s Supreme Court issued a statement saying that the crimes committed by Tedeev fall into the category of “minor offences,” which carry a maximum sentence of three years. Pre-trial detention in such cases is also limited — and Tedeev, the court noted, had already spent longer behind bars than the law allows.
“The criminal case against Tedeev was opened in June 2024. At that time he was detained and placed in the temporary detention centre of the Interior Ministry. Since then, the accused Tedeev remained in custody in accordance with the preventive measure chosen by the court.
In November 2024, the case was sent to Tskhinvali city court, which extended his detention by six months,” the court’s press service explained.
According to the statement, Tedeev’s detention was extended several more times. In August 2025, his lawyer filed a cassation appeal seeking to replace pre-trial detention with house arrest. The court went further, ruling to release Tedeev under a travel ban and a pledge of good behaviour.
“The crime under Part 1 of Article 135 of the Russian Criminal Code, with which Tedeev is charged, is classified as a minor offence. From the moment the case was submitted to court, the accused had been held in custody for more than six months — beyond the maximum period permitted in such cases. The court considered this violation to be significant, affecting the legality of its earlier rulings,” the Supreme Court said.
The father of the victim, Villiam Guldaev, strongly rejected the court’s decision and struck the judge in anger. As a result, the accused was released while the girl’s father was arrested — a move that further fuelled public outrage.
“Villiam Guldaev, a father defending his family’s honour, has been jailed until October. His ‘crime’ was striking, in a fit of emotion, a corrupt and contemptible judge — Supreme Court judge Alan Kibilov, who unlawfully freed a paedophile who abused Guldaev’s daughter.
Instead of punishing the corrupt judge, the system has thrown behind bars a victim driven to despair,” one blogger wrote angrily.
Meanwhile, the opposition party United Ossetia called for “urgent and comprehensive reforms of the prosecutor’s office and the courts, ranging from reviews of professional competence to re-examining the decisions, internal acts and rulings they have issued.”
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