Refugee charged with murder

Ilias Azimov, an internally displaced person who was recently arrested in a brute-force form in a temporary accommodation point for IDPs in the Staropromyslovskii district of Grozny, is suspected of committing murder, a source with Chechnya's Internal Affairs Ministry told Caucasian Knot's correspondent.

"The special operation for detaining Azimov in the evening on 28 July in the refugee camp was carried out jointly by officers of the Itum-Kali and Staropromyslovskii district divisions of internal affairs, according to my information. Azimov is currently in the Shatoi inter-district prosecutor's office, interrogated by investigators. He is charged with being involved in the murder of Abdul-Azim Yangulbayev, head of administration in Dzumsoi, Itum-Kali district, committed on 4 July this year in Bugaroi in the same district, as well as the murder of a police officer and a military commandant's office man committed on the next day," the source says.

Some IDPs, dwellers of several temporary accommodation points, blocked a road near the Zagriazhskii community on 29 July, demanding that abducted Ilias Azimov should be released. The people deeply resented the way the law enforcers carried out the arrest of the suspect.

Eyewitnesses say the law enforcement agents who broke into the temporary accommodation point on 28 July were in masks, shooting randomly in every direction. They beat several people, including a disabled refugee and two adolescents. A public meeting staged the next morning by IDPs living in several temporary accommodation points was dispersed in a brute-force way.

Meanwhile, the source with the republican Internal Affairs Ministry says the minister had signed an order back in 2004 that allowed law enforcement agents to shoot to kill people in masks. "The guards of the temporary accommodation point were actually authorised to use weapons, although they didn't. Most likely because they were neutralised at once," thinks the interlocutor.

• Brute force against refugees