Not from the first torture – Newspaper Kommersant No. 177 (7378) of 09/26/2022

Human rights activists from the “Team Against Torture” (CAT, created instead of the liquidated “Committee against Torture”, entered in the register of foreign agents) summed up the results of 19 years of their work in the North Caucasus. During this time, the CPT has never been able to punish law enforcement officers of the North Caucasus Federal District for torture or illegal acts of violence. In most cases, local investigators simply refuse to initiate such criminal cases or do not bring them to court. At the same time, in other regions of the Russian Federation, the team’s lawyers have achieved more than 150 sentences for similar crimes. Other human rights organizations confirm that cases of punishment of security forces in the North Caucasus are literally isolated.

The “Team Against Torture” released a report “The Arithmetic of Torture: The North Caucasus Federal District”, in which it summed up the results of 19 years of its work in the North Caucasus Federal District. From 2003 to 2009, the organization was primarily involved in investigating complaints of human rights violations during armed conflicts. From 2009 to 2015, the committee’s lawyers were present in Chechnya as part of a consolidated mobile group of human rights organizations. Since April 2017, the CPT has been working on complaints of torture and other human rights violations in all seven regions of the North Caucasus Federal District. Through its own investigations, the CPT confirmed 43 cases of human rights violations, the report says. Of these, 23 were torture (in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia).

It should be noted that until June 2022, such a composition was absent in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, therefore, law enforcement officers who used illegal violence against citizens were primarily threatened by Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Exceeding official powers”. Over the past 19 years, lawyers from the Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Krasnodar and Moscow branches of the CPT have secured punishment for at least 159 security officials; Almost all of them were convicted under Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, there were also several sentences under Art. 302 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (compulsion to testify). But in the North Caucasus Federal District, human rights activists from the CPT have never managed to get a court punishment.

The only case close to this goal is the story of employees of the Chechen department of the Russian Guard Bekhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Dukaev. In December 2020, the Gudermes City Court found them guilty of abuse of power due to the illegal detention of Alexei Kardashov, a resident of Dagestan (later found murdered). Bekhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Dukaev were each given three and a half years of probation, but the Supreme Court of Chechnya overturned the sentence. Now the case is back in the court of first instance.

“In the judicial statistics of the North Caucasus Federal District there is a case of conviction under Art. 286, but there the person did not torture anyone, did not torment, did not want to receive information – he simply gave an illegal order, – explains Lyudmila Kukhnina, an analyst at the checkpoint. purpose.”

The CPT lawyers point to a systemic problem in the North Caucasus Federal District: here, the Investigative Committee, after pre-investigation checks, in 87% of cases refuses to initiate criminal cases about violence by the security forces. There were only three exceptions when the investigation immediately opened cases: two in Dagestan and one in Chechnya. But on average, human rights activists have to appeal against the refusal of the investigation twice, the authors of the report write. So, according to the complaint of Mikhail Vladovsky (beaten by police in Chechnya in 2004), there were five decisions to refuse to initiate a criminal case.

In 65%, the applicants never succeed in getting an investigation started. Thus, one of the refusal orders states: the applicant claims that he was illegally detained by masked men in a car without registration numbers. They took him to the police station, where they tortured him: “Police officers wrapped his arms and legs with tape over the legs of a chair, then they fastened metal clothespins to his ears and began to shock him; sometimes laid on the floor, pressed on the spine and strangled. A medical examination the next day recorded serious bodily harm. Later, the investigation interrogated the suspects and received the same type of answers: “They did not use any physical violence, they did not exert psychological pressure.” Satisfied with this, the investigator issued a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case.

But even the initiation of a case does not at all guarantee an effective search for the perpetrators, emphasizes the Team Against Torture. During the investigation of the case against Mikhail Vladovsky, not a single suspect was identified, and in 2014 the statute of limitations for bringing to justice completely expired. At the same time, Mr. Vladovsky himself was sentenced in February 2004 to two years in prison on the basis of the very testimony that, according to him, was forced out under torture.

Another example is the case against Alikhan Akhmedov, a resident of Chechnya. In 2007, Mr. Akhmedov stated that OMON officers tortured him; the man was recognized as a victim only a year later. In the next 10 years, 19 orders were issued to suspend the preliminary investigation “due to the impossibility of identifying the suspects.” At the same time, the investigator did not even check the testimony of the victim on the spot, the authors of the report say, and did not present the persons for identification. The case was closed.

In both cases, the Team Against Torture appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and obtained compensation for the victims. “On average, in the European Court, we were able to obtain (in cases of violence against security forces.— “b”) compensation in the amount of €25,000. At the same time, the same figure for the North Caucasus Federal District is twice as high – €51 thousand, – says Ekaterina Vanslova. – This is due to the fact that torture in the North Caucasus Federal District is often particularly cruel, which affects the increase in the amount of compensation. Having studied the known cases of torture, the “Team Against Torture” calculated: employees of the power structures of the North Caucasus Federal District most often beat people with their hands (78%), used electric current (56%) or kicked them (53%); different types of torture were usually used simultaneously. There were cases where the victim was forced to eat hair or hung on a tree by the legs and doused with water, and also burned his palm, but no cases were brought about this.

The report of the CPT was sent to the State Duma, the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the presidential envoy in the North Caucasus Federal District, as well as regional officials and security forces – a total of 68 recipients. The CPT emphasizes that they “approached each letter individually”: some addressees were asked for help, others for cooperation, and still others for comments on specific cases. “The CPT contacted the authorities many times, but there was no response. We hope that the statistics will finally draw attention to the situation in the region,” Natalya Kurekina, press secretary of the CPT, told Kommersant.

“It is difficult to get a case of torture filed anywhere, especially if it is not in hot pursuit. But in the North Caucasus, it is especially difficult,” Natalya Taubina, head of the Public Verdict (included in the register of foreign agents), told Kommersant. “Public Verdict” conducted three such cases in the North Caucasus Federal District, one of which ended in a guilty verdict.

“I fully agree with the conclusions of the Team Against Torture, since over the 22 years of work in the North Caucasus we have approximately the same picture,” Oleg Orlov, co-chairman of the Memorial Human Rights Center (created by supporters of the previously recognized a foreign agent and the Human Rights Center “Memorial” liquidated by a court decision). – The only thing, according to our experience in the North Caucasus Federal District, most often they beat not with their hands, but with plastic pipes and bottles of water – fewer traces remain. And so the North Caucasus Federal District is really a unique region, where the percentage of refusals exceeds 80% and it is almost impossible to get sentences. More often than not, investigators report that they “couldn’t find” the culprit. We had more than a hundred cases won (by torture.— “b”) to the ECtHR, but in Russian courts they can be counted on the fingers.”

Oleg Orlov named several cases to Kommersant when a statement of torture ended in a guilty verdict, and stressed that each time this was accompanied by “unique” circumstances. “Thus, in the ‘Cadet case’ we would not have succeeded without Anna Politkovskaya,” the human rights activist gives an example. Recall that policeman Sergei Lapin with the call sign Cadet in 2001 detained and interrogated with violence Zelimkhan Murdalov, a resident of Grozny, who then went missing; in 2005, Mr. Lapin was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta journalist, covered the investigation and the trial in detail. Another example is the case against the former head of the Center for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia, Timur Khamkhoev (in 2018, together with six subordinates, he was convicted of a number of crimes, including illegal violence against detainees). “For a number of years, we have sought to initiate a case of torture. But then Khamkhoev and his employees were involved in another case, and then the tortures surfaced, ”explains Mr. Orlov.

Kommersant sent a request to the presidential representative in the North Caucasus Federal District with a request to comment on the claims of human rights activists. In the embassy, ​​”Kommersant” was sent to the press service of the presidential administration. Both the Presidential Administration and the Investigative Committee redirected Kommersant to the Prosecutor General’s Office. The supervisory authority did not promptly respond to the request.

Uliana Mironova