Advocates of Karpyuk and Klykh state violation of their clients' rights by Chechen court

A court in Chechnya has violated the rights of citizens of Ukraine Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh by allowing the public prosecutor to read out their testimonies obtained through torture, said their advocates.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 26, in Grozny, the court started hearing on the merits in the case against Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh accused of involvement in the combat actions in the territory of Chechnya. According to the defendants' advocates, investigators failed to provide evidence for the involvement of Nikolai Karpyuk and Stanislav Klykh in the combat actions in Chechnya.

During the today's court session on the case of Karpyuk and Klykh, the prosecutor petitioned about disclosure of the testimonies given by Karpyuk during the preliminary investigation, the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" reports.

The advocate Dokka Itslaev asked the court to reject the petition. "Karpyuk had earlier at the trial rejected them," said Dokka Itslaev.

"Those were not my words. It was a paraphrase of investigators' words. The testimonies were obtained under torture. I resisted for four days; but then they threatened to find my son and treat him like me. After that, I gave up and delivered the testimonies they needed," said Nikolai Karpyuk.

But in the end, the judge granted the petition of the public prosecutor.

"By allowing the prosecutor to read the testimonies, which were rejected by Karpyuk, the court violated the defendants' rights," said Dokka Itslaev. "This evidence was obtained without an advocate present. My client had repeatedly stated that the testimonies were obtained under torture."

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