Ingush court refuses to drop charges against athlete Khamkhoev

The Supreme Court (SC) of Ingushetia has taken the arrest term already served by the athlete Albert Khamkhoev into account of his conditional imprisonment, but refused to declare him innocent of arms possession.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 10, the court sentenced Khamkhoev to 1.5 years of conditional imprisonment, finding him guilty of possessing firearms. He refused to plead guilty and remanded that he was tortured after detention. No proofs of his guilt were presented, believes Timur Akiev, the head of the Ingush office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial".

Khamkhoev was detained after militants' attack on the road-and-patrol service (DPS) post in Yandare on November 5, 2017. According to his relatives, law enforcers beat Khamkhoev up at detention and planted a pistol on him. They linked Khamkhoev's persecution with the fact that he had trained with Magomed Murzabekov, who was killed during the attack on the post.

The advocate provided the court with a detailed analysis of the evidence base, noting violations during the search, said Konstantin Gusev, a representative of the Committee against Torture (CaT), wrote on the Facebook.

The advocate has noted that an innocent man was tortured and convicted; and anyone could be in his place.