Court in Chechnya refuses to add evidence about Kardashov's disappearance to case files

Representatives of the suffered party in the case of the disappearance of Alexei Kardashov, a resident of Dagestan, have asked to add the testimony of Said-Magomed Omarov to the case files, although it contradicts the version of the "Rosgvardiya" (Russian National Guard) fighters from Chechnya accused of illegally detaining Kardashov. The court refused to add Omarov's testimony to the case files in order to avoid the return of the materials to the prosecutor's office, a lawyer of the "Team against Torture"* has noted.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 14, 2020, a court in Gudermes found the former fighter of the Chechen "Rosgvardiya" branch, Bekkhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Dukaev guilty of illegally detaining Alexei Kardashov, a resident of Dagestan, who then disappeared. Each of the fighters was sentenced conditionally. The "Committee against Torture"*, where Kardashov's mother, Tsilya Yakubova, had turned, disagreed with the verdict. Human rights defenders treated the verdict as an actual acquittal and began seeking its revision. In the spring of 2021, the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya overturned the verdict against Abdurashidov and Dukaev, sending the case back for a new trial.

The adding of Omarov's first testimony to the materials of the judicial investigation of the case of the above "Rosgvardiya" fighters could have influenced the return of this case for additional investigation to the prosecutor's office, Roman Veretennikov, a lawyer for the North-Caucasian branch of the "Team against Torture"*, has emphasized.