HRC "Memorial": members of Ozdiev family detained in Chechnya

On May 21, in Chechnya, Isa and Belal Ozdiev - members of the family of well-known Chechen businessmen - Ozdiev brothers were detained. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" reports with reference to eyewitnesses of the incident that the brothers were beaten at detention.

As reported by human rights activists, on May 17, Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the Board of the HRC "Memorial" and the chair of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, was addressed by Shakhab Ozdiev, one of nine Ozdiev brothers. He gave her a letter addressed to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, where the Ozdievs ask to protect them from destruction of their business and illegal criminal prosecution.

"It's difficult to state for sure that the incident on May 21 is directly linked with the brothers' appeal to the President of the Russian Federation," says the statement of the HRC "Memorial" that arrived on May 24 to the "Caucasian Knot".

"However, two members of the Ozdiev family were detained on the same day. At 7:30 p.m. Isa Ozdiev's car was stopped. Isa was dragged out of his car and brought to the Kurchaloy OVD (Interior Division). One and a half hour before that his nephew Belal Ozdiev was detained in a restaurant by securities of President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. They took away Belal's car and his legally documented traumatic weapon and brought him to the Zavodskoy OVD of Grozny."

According to the HRC "Memorial", force was applied to both brothers allegedly for disobedience to the authorities. According to the witnesses, both detainees were beaten, Isa's clothes were torn and poured with blood, as their relatives report.