Aunt of defendant in caliphate case confirms torture at police

The North-Caucasian Military Court has questioned three defence witnesses in the case of an attempt to create caliphate in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR). An aunt of Akhmed Balkarov said that at the police station she heard cries of her nephew after his arrest.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the case against 10 KBR residents, accused of an attempt to create a caliphate in the republic with Sharia ruling, arrived in the court in August. None of the defendants has pled guilty.

On December 8, the court interrogated two aunts of Akhmed Balkarov – Valentina Balkarova and Madina Sokurova, who were eyewitnesses of the search in the apartment of Arina Balkarova, and Rauzat Akmurzaeva, who participated as a witness, when they took flushing from the residues of the improvised explosion device (IED) allegedly planted by defendants Miskhozhev and Balkarov under the car of Police Colonel Tembotov.

According to Balkarova, on January 11, 2014, the apartment of Balkarovs was visited by seven or eight masked men with submachine guns. They did not present themselves and did not explain the witnesses their rights.

According to Valentina Sokurova, the advocate Doduev had told mothers that young men were tortured at the police with electric current.

The witnesses' statements indicate discrepancies in details in the to investigators' version, said the advocate Yuri Bachurin.

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