Advocates claim no-admission to Chechen native detained in Moscow

Yusup Kutaev, a native of Chechnya, has been kept in a Moscow police station for 24 hours, where advocates are not allowed to visit him and another detainee, the advocates have reported. According to their version, law enforcers failed to register the men's presence at the station and refused to explain the reasons for the detention.

The advocates, Aslan Dankaev and Alexei Golenko, are not let into the building of the Interior Department of the Western Administrative Region of Moscow, where Yusup Kutaev, a 21-year-old native of Chechnya, and Svyatoslav Voitovich, a Muscovite, who had turned for legal assistance to the advocates, are kept, the advocates told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Kutaev was detained last night: he was with his brother in the apartment; law enforcers were in [civilian clothes], failed to introduce themselves and presented no documents. Voitovich was detained this afternoon (June 11): [law enforcers] came home to him and began breaking into the apartment; he went out, they told him that they had an order to bring him to the police station; they grabbed him and took away," said Alexei Golenko, an advocate.

The detainees' relatives were not informed about the incident and that the men were at the police station; the information came from the detainees themselves, Aslan Dankaev, another advocate, has explained.

"According to unconfirmed information, the point is allegedly in some crime committed by them nine months ago. We have no official confirmation and no information about their stay at the station, since their names are not in the registration books," the lawyer has added.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 11, 2020 at 09:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.