Terrorist suspects report on torture against them

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan is considering the case on the explosion of an apartment house in Kaspiysk. The explosion of an antipersonnel mine on 9 May 2002 left 43 people dead and about 140 people injured. Investigators believe that the terrorist act was committed by a rebel group made up of 10 people belonging to the unit of field commander Rappani Khalilov. Three of them have been detained. They are Murad Abdurazakov, Abdulkhakim Abdulkarimov, and Khanali Umakhanov; the other people, including the organizers of the crime, Rappani Khalilov and Kazim Abdurakhmanov, are wanted.

All the detainees say they have nothing to do with the terrorist act. The mother of one of the accused, Murad Abdurazakov, delivered a letter to the editors of the Dagestansky Rakurs newspaper, in which she asserted that her son was subjected to torture during the investigation. He really was at war in Abkhazia in his time, and then he was a member of illegal armed units in Chechnya. He does not deny it. The Dagestantsi newspaper published his statement. He was quoted as saying, "They throttled me, pressed down on eye-sockets, beat me. That is why I was to sign statements they themselves had invented. I needed to survive, to wait till the trial." His friend, Aliaskhab from the village of Miatli, was tortured by putting ice on his head, which created a center of brain fever, he said. Aliaskhab went mad after it, and blew up himself when he was set free. The mother of Khanali Umakhanov asserts that her son lost his reason not having stood the torture which he was subjected to during the investigation. The following diagnosis is mentioned in the extract form Umakhanov's ambulatory card: "After-effects of a craniocerebral injury. Encephalopathy."

Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgerey Magomedtagirov considers the suspects' fault to be proved. Asked about the torture, he said, "One of police officers may have lost his temper. We all are fathers, and so many children were killed, you see." The lawyers believe the investigative bodies try to find the guilty by all means. Field commander Rappani Khalilov spread leaflets in a mosque in Makhachkala claiming he and his people had nothing to do with the terrorist act in Kaspiysk.

It should be noted that 11 officers of the local department for struggle against extremism and terrorism have been killed lately, its chief, Colonel Akilov, being among them. Some analysts link these murders in particular to torture against suspects.