In Chechnya, Saduev faces danger of being left without legal protection

The Chechen law enforcement bodies promise that "everything will be fine" and try to persuade relatives of Ilyas Saduev, deported from France, to refuse hiring an advocate by agreement in order to deprive him of real defence in court, human rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" suggest.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that 29-year-old Ilyas Saduev was deported from France to Russia, despite reports from human rights defenders about the danger threatening him in his homeland.

According to relatives of Ilyas Saduev, even before his leaving for France, he was tortured in Chechnya, when law enforcers were forcing him to confess to a crime.

One of the Ilyas Saduev's female relatives reported that the father of the young man visited the law enforcement bodies and got promises that "everything would be fine."

Relatives of the people detained in Chechnya often try to negotiate with law enforcers and refuse to hire advocates, which in fact deprives the suspects of legal protection, notes Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the "Civic Assistance Committee"*.

Refusal to hire an advocate by agreement will create problems for Ilyas Saduev, believes Magomed Alamov, the head of the North-Caucasian branch of the Committee against Torture (CaT). "I find it difficult to recall a specific example, but all the people who address the CaT from Chechnya say that they were asked not to have an advocate by agreement and that law enforcers were persuading them not to spend money on advocates. The law enforcers said there was no need to hire an advocate by agreement and promised everything would be fine, and so on. However, finally, the detainees were released after a very long time, if there were no grounds for charges, or they were charged and sentenced," the human rights defender told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

* the organization is recognized in the Russian Federation as a foreign agent

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 18, 2021 at 05:46 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.