Yury Budanov, a former tank commander during the second military campaign in Chechnya, was convicted in the summer of 2003 of murdering an 18-year-old Chechen woman, Elsa Kungayeva, three years earlier.
"Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer defending interests of the Kungayev's family, has appealed to the chairman of Russia's Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Lebedev, asking him to overturn the decision of the Dimitrovgrad City Court to grant Budanov's request for parole," the website said.
Budanov admitted killing Kungayeva, but claimed temporary insanity, saying he had strangled her in a fit of rage because he thought she was a sniper.
Budanov's conviction came after a lengthy legal process involving a controversial retrial and numerous psychiatric reports.
Russian society was divided over the issue, with human rights activists seeking his conviction, and other groups, including the military, supporting him.
In December 2002, a court in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don accepted Budanov's defense and acquitted him, but Russia's Supreme Court overturned the ruling in February 2003 and ordered a retrial.
In July 2003, the military tribunal of the North Caucasus Military District sentenced Budanov to 10 years and stripped him of his rank and honors after a two-year trial.
In September 2004, the then governor of the Ulyanovsk Region, Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, who served in Chechen campaigns, submitted an application for Budanov's pardon to then-President Vladimir Putin.
The request was turned down. The Kremlin said the guilty verdict was correct and punished those who tarnished the reputation of the Russian Army.
