Advocates are not allowed to study materials of investigation into the murder of human rights defender Estemirova

Rights defenders are not satisfied with the investigation into the murder of their colleague Natalia Estemirova. Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, said that the initially taken direction in the inquiry – against top Chechen officials – later was frozen.

"Our advocates are not allowed to get acquainted with this particular direction. At first we addressed the head of the Investigatory Group asking him to give these materials to our advocate, but we were rejected. We tried to challenge the refusal in court; however, our complaint was sent from court to court and – finally – was rejected. The version of the murder that at some moment appeared on the surface cannot be verified from any reasonable point of view and holds no criticism," said Gannushkina.

This was her comment on the version announced earlier by power agents that Estemirova was murdered by Bashaev brothers, residents of Chechnya, out of personal revenge, supposedly, for her disclosing their links with militants.

"I'm confident that in fact all those who were in charge of the investigation knew the killers and could find them and bring to justice. But this is not done, since there's no political will; it lacks not only in Chechnya, but 'there's no truth above'," Svetlana Gannushkina has added.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told at the Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) reported that the details of the investigation into Estemirova's murder make a secret of the inquiry, which cannot be disclosed by the Committee; however, they assured that all the necessary actions, interrogations and document analysis had been duly made. The ICRF officials refused to comment the criticism of human rights defenders.

Let us remind you that Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped in the morning on July 15 in Grozny by a group of unidentified persons. In the evening of the same day her body was found near the village of Gazi-Yurt in the Nazran District of Ingushetia.