Russia loses in Strasbourg on complaint of "Memorial" employee who worked with Estemirova

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has passed a decision on the complaint of the employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", who worked with Natalia Estemirova. The complaint concerned abduction in 2003 in Grozny of a certain Gisaev by Russian militaries. The court has obliged Russia to pay a compensation of 55,000 euros for moral harm to the complainant and 1957 euros to his representatives for rendered legal services.

The complaint "Gisaev versus Russia" was filed with the ECtHR on April 19, 2004, by the HRC "Memorial" (Moscow) and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC, London). At the national level, lawyer Isa Gandarov, an employee of the HRC "Memorial" in Ingushetia, was engaged in exhaustion of remedies. This is stated in the message of the HRC "Memorial" received by the "Caucasian Knot".

Ahmed Gisaev, a native of Grozny, was kidnapped on October 23, 2003, from his home in Grozny by Russian militaries. He was taken to some "secret prison" - the place of illegal detention, where he was brutally tortured for two weeks under demand to give information about Chechen militants. Gisaev was released on November 7, 2003, after his family paid 1500 US dollars of ransom. The kidnappers put his out of the car near his house with bruises and burns on his body.

The ECtHR has found that Ahmed Gisaev was tortured by representatives of Russian authorities, thereby having stated the most serious of possible violations of Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). The Court also found a violation of Article 3 in the procedural part (the fact of torture was not duly investigated).

Russian authorities had refused to provide the court with copies of the criminal case files, referring to the secrecy of information about military operations, but claimed that an effective investigation into the incident had been conducted.

Let us note here that since summer of 2008 Ahmed Gisaev worked for the representative office of the "Memorial" in Grozny. Together with Natalia Estemirova he was investigating crimes committed by power agents, but soon after the murder of Natalia Estemirova on July 15, 2009, armed persons began openly shadowing and threatening Ahmed. At the suit of the HRC "Memorial" Gisaev left Russian together with his wife and a child.