ECtHR awards posthumous compensation to former bodyguard of Akhmat Kadyrov

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) awarded €15,000 to Ayub Tuntuev, the former commander of the security service of the head of the Chechen administration and then President of Chechnya, Akhmat Kadyrov. The Court recognized Russia’s responsibility for violations of the Convention in terms of the “prohibition of torture”.

Recall that Ayub Tuntuev was accused of committing a terrorist act in the village of Znamenskoye in the summer of 2005: on July 19, 2005, a mined police UAZ exploded there, killing 14 people, including 10 police officers and an FSB officer. Ayub Tuntuev stated that he was a hundred kilometers from Znamensky, on the basis of the Anti-Terrorist Center (ATC, the name of the security service department he heads) in Argun.

Two other people were charged with him. Deputy Prosecutor of Chechnya Vladimir Kalugin told then “Kommersant”that with Ayub Tuntuev “it was the most difficult thing”: “After all, the leadership of the ATC, in which he served, needed irrefutable evidence of his criminal past. Such evidence has been presented.” The president’s bodyguard was sentenced to life in prison, but the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned the decision and sent the case back for a new trial. As a result, the terms were reduced, Ayub Tuntuev was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

During his detention in IK-6 of the Vladimir region, Ayub Tuntuev repeatedly complained about torture. “The ECHR took into account the fact that after being transferred to the Vladimir colony in 2015, Ayub Tuntuev was repeatedly beaten and tortured by the prison staff. The prisoner was required to sign a statement about his participation in hostilities against the federal forces in Chechnya in 1994-2005 and about participation in an armed clash in the summer of 1999 in the Botlikh region of Dagestan. They demanded that Tuntuev sign a waiver of a lawyer, ”says the report of the Justice Initiative project (included in the register of foreign agents), whose lawyers represented the interests of Ayub Tuntuev at the ECHR.

Ayub Tuntuev complained to the ECtHR about torture in 2016; in 2019, he died in custody – according to the official version, he committed suicide. His lawyer Tagir Shamsudinov conversation with Kommersant, he insisted that Ayub Tuntuev “did not think of parting with his life,” including because he hoped for a trial on the violation of his rights in the European Court. The lawyer also reported on the client’s complaints about threats from the administration of the colony.

According to the law adopted in June 2022 by the State Duma, decisions of the ECtHR that entered into force after March 15, 2022 are not subject to execution. This is due to the termination of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe. Payments for decisions that were made before March 15, the Prosecutor General’s Office can make until January 1, 2023, but only in rubles. According to human rights activists, the Russians, on whose complaints the ECHR decided after the specified date, have already begun to receive refusals from the Prosecutor General’s Office to pay compensation.

Maria Starikova