Shootout version in Chechnya causes doubts

Villagers from Stary Achkhoi have treated the three men shot dead by law enforcers as newcomers, a local resident has stated. The investigators' version about a shootout raises doubts, Chechen activists and Internet users have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 14, in the village of Stary Achkhoi, the Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya, three people shelled a policeman and were shot dead by return fire; one policeman was wounded. Ramzan Kadyrov has claimed that two members of the grouping that had been planning attacks on law enforcers were detained.

An Achkhoi-Martan resident named Adlan has stated, citing his sister, who heard the sounds of gunfire, that those killed were not local residents.

Administrators of an oppositional Telegram have also doubted the investigators' version. They suggested that those killed were "residents of Chechnya, who had been held and tortured in basements."

The "Caucasian Knot" reader kendrick.pollich has also treated the investigators' version as insufficiently convincing. "No data about those killed is given, nor their motives. Some residents of Chechnya believe that the shootout in Stary Achkhoi could have been another performance staged by Kadyrov's law enforcers aimed to conceal another extrajudicial execution," the reader has suggested.