Chechen prosecutor's office initiated a torture case on materials of human rights activists

The human rights organization "Committee Against Tortures" (CAT) reported that the prosecutor's office of the Chechen Republic initiated a case of application of tortures against Mikhail Vladovskiy, a citizen of Chechnya who suffered from illegal actions of the workers of law enforcement bodies. The case was opened with account of the information contained in the report on public investigation held by CAT's Chechen regional representative office. This is the subject of the letter sent by Mr. Kalugin, Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic, to advocate Supyan Baskhanov, head of the representative office. Earlier, the prosecutor's office repeatedly denied initiating a criminal case on torturing Vladovskiy.

On February 9, 2004, Vladovskiy, M. A., was sentenced by the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic of the ChR under Part 1, Article 222, of the CCRF (illegal keeping of weapon) to two years of deprivation of freedom at a general custody corrective colony. Considering the verdict to be unfair, Vladovskiy appealed against it to the cassation instance. However, until his petition had to be considered, he was convoyed by Dukaev, investigator of the prosecutor's office of the Leninskiy District to the corrective facility of the same district Interior Department, where militiamen subjected him to violent tortures for his refusal to confess committing a terrorist act. On the following day Vladovskiy looked absolutely sick. He could hardly move, and his wardens had to take him to City Hospital No. 9 of Grozny. The doctors examined him and found bone cracks in the right leg and blood vessel fractures in both legs.

The CAT has created a network of public organizations and representative offices covering a number of regions in the Russian Federation. In 2004, such representative office started its work in Chechnya, runs a letter of the Russian-Chechen Information Agency that arrived to the editorial board of the "Caucasian Knot."