11:56, 19 March 2019

AI condemns sentence to Oyub Titiev

The trial of Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", held in Chechnya, has demonstrated all the evils of the Russian justice, Mary Struthers, Director of the Amnesty International (AI) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

On March 18, the court sentenced Titiev to four years in colony after finding him guilty of drug possession. The court found the testimonies of the defence witnesses to be insignificant.

Titiev himself insists that the drug was planted on him. The HRC "Memorial" has presented 10 facts evidencing that the case had been falsified.

The four-year colony term appointed to Titiev is "an insult to human rights and justice," since the court ignored all the proofs of his innocence, Ms Struthers has stated.

At the trial over Titiev, the court was just a tool in the hands of the Chechen authorities, she has noted. At the start of the trial, rights defenders demanded to transfer it to another region, the AI's official has recalled.

"We call for the immediate release of Titiev, since he is a prisoner of conscience, convicted only for his human rights work in Chechnya," says the AI's website.

Yakub Titiev, Ouyb's brother, has treated the verdict as cruel. The court became a great stress for the whole family; and Ouyb's relatives were under huge pressure, he told the "Caucasian Knot".

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 19, 2019 at 02:42 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.