14:40, 31 March 2015

Rights defenders are concerned about absence of check of Dadaev's statements about torture

Law enforcers at the funeral of Boris Nemtsov. Moscow, March 3, 2015. Photo by Vyacheslav Feraposhkin for the ‘Caucasian Knot’.

As stated by the "Committee against Torture", the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has done nothing in effect to check the complaints of the figurants in the Nemtsov's murder case about law enforcers' unlawful physical assault on them.

Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed in Moscow on February 27. Five persons, including Zaur Dadaev, Anzor and Shagid Gubashev, Khamzat Bakhaev and Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, were detained on suspicion of involvement in the murder. They would not plead guilty.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 10 Zaur Dadaev, who is accused of killing Boris Nemtsov, told members of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) that he had been tortured by power agents. Elena Masyuk, a member of the Moscow POC, who visited Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, another figurant in the case, on March 17, told about his complaints against, among other things, bullying and threats from the convoy.

Tamerlan Eskerkhanov and Zaur Dadaev have officially turned to the Moscow branch of the interregional public organization "Committee against Torture" (CaT) for legal help.

According to CaT's eights defenders, when they began their public inquiry, they faced problems and actual unwillingness of the official investigators to check Dadaev's and Eskerkhanov's statements.

The rights defenders point out that, despite the promise of the ICRF to check the illegal use of force against Dadaev and others persons, Dadaev was not even questioned by investigators to this end.

Besides, the advocate Evgeny Gubin, who was invited by the CaT, for two weeks cannot visit his client Zaur Dadaev at SIZO (pre-trial prison) "Lefortovo", rights defenders assert.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.