Kuban investigators return Tepsurkaev’s case to Chechnya

In Gelendzhik, investigators sent a criminal case on the kidnapping of Salman Tepsurkaev, a moderator of the opposition 1Adat Telegram Channel, to Chechnya for further investigation. At present, there is a chance that a wife of Salman Tepsurkaev will be granted the status of a victim due to the established practice of recognizing religious marriages in the republic, believes Leysan Mannapova, a lawyer of the Committee Against Torture (CaT). Salman Tepsurkaev’s wife is afraid to go to Chechnya. The woman does not expect that the man who kidnapped her husband will be found.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in September 2020, a wide public outcry was provoked by a video in which naked Salman Tepsurkaev was sitting down on a bottle and explaining that he was doing that as punishment for his cooperation with the 1Adat Telegram Channel, known for criticism of the Chechen authorities. Since then, the man never contacted his family.

Earlier, there was hope that investigators in Gelendzhik had more opportunities to investigate the case than their colleagues in Chechnya, Leysan Mannapova says.

The lawyer notes there are no big hopes that the Chechen investigators will be able to question inspectors of the patrol-and-post (known as PPS) service and that some suspects will be involved in the case.

According to Elizaveta, the wife of Salman Tepsurkaev, she left Chechnya and has no plans to return to the republic. The woman notes that for six months, the investigators in Gelendzhik have done almost nothing, and “the case has hardly made any progress.”