Chelysheva: police has fabricated links between Egle Kusaite, Magmadovs and Gataevs

The cases of Aishat and Apti Magmadovs, arrested near Moscow, Egle Kusaite, suspected of terrorism in Lithuania, and the Gataev family of Chechen refugees, currently pending of their refugee status in Finland, were deliberately linked together to give more international resonance. This was stated by Oksana Chelysheva, deputy director of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship.

Apti and Aishat Magmadova were arrested in operation of FSB special agents on January 19, 2010. According to their mother, FSB officers believe that her children were preparing Kusaite to terror act. In September, the court again extended their custody; however, their mother - Tamara Magmadova - argues that they are not guilty.

With regard to the Gataev family, as previously reported by the "Caucasian Knot", Malik Gataev and his wife found themselves for several months in Lithuanian prison on charges of "family despotism".

"I want to specify the fact that Russian media reported Egle Kusaite's arrest almost immediately after the terror acts in the Moscow metro in March this year. They also stated then that the girl was arrested allegedly on her way to Moscow, and thus, another female suicide bomber was neutralized. But in fact, she had been arrested several months before that," Oksana Chelysheva told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Egle Kusaite's mother told Chelysheva that for some time she had been unaware of what happened with her daughter. "Nobody was admitted to see her, until human rights defenders, journalists and some Lithuanian politicians paid attention to Egle Kusaite's case," said Oksana Chelysheva.

According to her story, the Magmadovs were needed to give "international dimension" to the case.

Recently Egle Kusaite has publicly stated that agents of the Russia's FSB were beating her during interrogations - with her head against the floor and the walls, demanding to sign evidences against herself and Magmadovs, Oksana Chelysheva said and noted that it was already official information, which appeared in Lithuanian media, in particular, in the edition named DELFI.

According to Oksana's data, Egle Kusaite was "treated" by the security police of Klaipeda since 2007. "She lived under the tutelage of the Security Police (SP); agents of the SP shadowed her and tried to recruit her to some sort of trip to Egypt, to an Islamic school, or somewhere else. But the girl refused from all that," said Oksana Chelysheva.

Egle Kusaite herself said, according to the rights defender, that she had normal friendship relations with Aishat Magmadova; they had no criminal ideas and never talked about this sort of things.

"Egle said that some of those calls she had allegedly made to the Magmadovs in Russia, or SMS-messages sent, which now figure as evidences in the case, had been made or sent from her phone by Lithuanian SP agents after she was already in custody, and her telephone was confiscated. As to the Magmadovs, they just 'got into eyesight'," says Chelysheva.

Her source in Lithuania said that initially they had planned the role of a "decoy duck" for Egle Kusaite after she adopted Islam, and she was 17-18 years old then, to help in catching extremist contacts in other countries.

Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, who deals with the Magmadovs' case, also told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the arrest of Magmadovs has to do with Egle Kusaite's arrest in Lithuania.

"So far, as I can see, according to their mother, there were illegal attempts of the FSB to force Apti to confess of something in exchange of the promises to release her sister. I totally believe in this, because, unfortunately, such methods are generally accepted," said Svetlana Gannushkina.

According to Tamara Magmadova, mother of Apti and Aishat, arrested by the FSB in January, there are no changes in the case of her children - they are still kept in Lefortovo.