Chechen Prosecutor's Office demands to reopen investigation into kidnapping of MIA's employee in 2004

The Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya has revealed violations in the investigation into the kidnapping of Bekman Asadulaev, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), committed on January 14, 2004. Although the investigators had closed the case, the Prosecutor's Office has demanded to resume the inquiry, said a source from the Chechen Prosecutor's Office.

Bekman Asadulaev disappeared in Grozny on January 14, 2004. On September 17, 2009, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decided to regard him as dead and claimed the involvement of agents of the Russian authorities in his death.

According to the Chechen Prosecutor's Office, the investigation into the disappearance of Bekman Asadulaev was unreasonably suspended at the stage of the preliminary investigation.

"A group of armed persons in military uniform, under a threat of physical violence, kidnapped Bekman Asadulaev, an employee of the local police department of the village of Pobedinskoe of the Grozny District of Chechnya, from the territory of the Chechen MIA in Grozny," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by an official from the Prosecutor's Office.

According to the prosecutor's check, the investigator, who considered the case, failed to question a number of witnesses of the kidnapping and to take "the necessary measures to identify persons involved in the commission of the crime."