08:41, 18 March 2021

Chechen law enforcer indirectly confirms coercion to execute journalists

A soldier of the Akhmat Kadyrov Special Police Regiment reports on the coercion "to take responsibility in order to stop the insults against the whole contingent." Screenshot: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CMhmywYoD0L/?igshid=zl4q1r836p4e

The fighters of the Akhmat Kadyrov Special Police Regiment are being forced to make one of them "take responsibility for stopping insults of the whole regiment staff," said one of the Chechen law enforcers who recorded a video message to the Russian President in connection with the publications of the "Novaya Gazeta" about extrajudicial executions.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that at a rally in Grozny, relatives of the servicemen of the above Regiment accused the journalist Elena Milashina of provocations.

On February 15, the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" made public copies of the photo tables prepared by the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). The tables contained the information concerning the detention of 108 people, some of whom fell victim to extrajudicial killings in 2017. The newspaper also released a testimony of Chechen law enforcer Suleiman Gezmakhmaev. According to his story, residents of Chechnya, detained in January 2017, were tortured and forced to incriminate themselves before the extrajudicial killings, and the law enforcer witnessed those events.

On March 17, the Instagram page of the Special Police Regiment posted an appeal to the President of Russia in connection with publications of the "Novaya Gazeta". The authors of the appeal ask Mr Putin to stop the "information war" unleashed against the regiment.

"We, the servicemen of the Special Police Regiment [...], are hereby appealing to you with a request to pay attention to the vile attacks of the fake edition, which is 'Novaya Gazeta', against our fighters. We are ready to fulfil any of your orders," the servicemen state in their appeal to Vladimir Putin.

The post is accompanied by a video in which individual soldiers of the regiment speak out. One of them has indirectly reported about the coercion to execute journalists of the "Novaya Gazeta". "We are already being forced to have one of us take responsibility in order to stop the insults against the whole contingent," the regiment fighter states in the video.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 17, 2021 at 09:56 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.