18:27, 30 March 2017

HRC "Memorial": three Chechen bodies fail to disclose information about detainees

In response to rights defenders’ requests, Chechen law enforcement bodies have failed to provide concrete information about the fate of Askhab Yusupov, Ismali Bergoev and Madina Shakhbieva, who were detained during the last December armed clashes in Grozny. However, the answer received from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) indirectly confirms that Shakhbieva was killed, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 17, 2016, in Grozny, attacks on policemen were committed, after which a large-scale special operation was launched in the city, as a resilt of which, according to power agents, seven alleged militants were killed and four others were detained.

Earlier, the source of the "Caucasian Knot" in the Chechen Ministry of Public Health reported that three of the detainees were in hospital with their wounds, but armed people took them out and killed. According to the source, among them there was Madina Shakhbieva, born in 1998, whom law enforcers called a girlfriend of Islam Altemirov, killed in the special operation. In January 2017, the death of Shakhbieva was confirmed by a reliable source of the HRC "Memorial".

To find out the fate of the detainees, the HRC "Memorial" sent requests to the Chechen Prosecutor's Office and the Republic’s Departments of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), Federal Security Bureau (FSB) and Federal Penitentiary Service (known as FSIN). The replies received by rights defenders from the above bodies are described in the message of the HRC "Memorial", received today by the "Caucasian Knot".

The Department for Criminal Search of the Chechen MIA has reported that Askhab Yusupov and Ismail Bergaev figure in the case of an attempted assassination of law enforcers (rights defenders believe that Ismali Bergoev is indicated there with mistakes, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"). The MIA’s answer says nothing on whether they are alive; besides, Madina Shakhbieva is not mentioned in it at all.

"Unfortunately, we should consider this fact as an indirect, but, nevertheless, a rather reliable confirmation that she was killed," says the rights defenders’ report.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.