Rights defenders report on disappearance of witnesses in case of Chechen native's death in Chelyabinsk penal colony

Relatives of Mamaev and Voloshin, prisoners of the Chelyabinsk penal colony, who testified in the case of the death of Sultan Israilov, a sentenced native of Chechnya, cannot reveal his whereabouts, human rights defenders report.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 21, 2015, Sultan Israilov, a prisoner of the Chelyabinsk penal colony No. 2, was found dead. According to the official version, he committed suicide; however, human rights defenders and his family members and friends question the official version.

On December 27, 2015, members of Gulagu.net, a project to protect the rights of prisoners, posted on YouTube a video record of a conversation between Anzor Mamaev, another prisoner from Chechnya, and Valeria Prikhodkina, a member of the Public Observation Commission (POC) for the Chelyabinsk Region. During this conversation, Anzor Mamaev said with confidence that Sultan Israilov had been killed.

On January 4, Kseniya Saidulaeva, a wife of Anzor Mamaev, reported that on December 27, 2015, her husband was "taken out of the penal colony IK No. 2 to some unknown destination", and since that time, she failed to reveal his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, members of the POC for the Chelyabinsk Region have failed to reveal the whereabouts of Nikolai Voloshin, another prisoner of the penal colony. This was reported by Valeria Prikhodkina, a member of the POC for the Chelyabinsk Region.

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