17:21, 22 May 2021

Chechen Tepsurkaev's wife demands to be regarded victim in her husband's kidnapping case

Salman Tepsurkaev. Screenshot of the video https://www.instagram.com/p/CFFm8A6Cwtn/

The wife of Salman Tepsurkaev, the moderator of the oppositional "1Adat" Telegram channel, has filed a complaint with the Gelendjik Court against the investigator's refusal to treat her as a victim in the case of her husband's kidnapping. According to the advocate, the law assumes the possibility of recognizing a wife with whom only a religious marriage was concluded as a suffered party.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in September 2020, a wide public outcry in Chechnya and beyond its borders was provoked by a video in which naked Salman Tepsurkaev was sitting down on a bottle and explaining that he was doing that as punishment for his cooperation with the 1Adat Telegram Channel, known for its criticism of the Chechen authorities. Then Salman Tepsurkaev stopped contacting his relatives. They believe that after being kidnapped in the Krasnodar Territory, he was brought to a law enforcement body in Grozny. The kidnapping of Salman Tepsurkaev was mentioned in the report prepared by the US Department of State on human rights violations in Russia.

According to Elizaveta, his wife, she has not seen her husband since August 2020; and the last time she spoke to him was on the day of his kidnapping on September 6. "Now I am the only close person of Salman, who continues being interested in the course of the investigation, but they wouldn't treat me as a victim, because I have marriage stamp in my passport," she said.

Earlier, human rights defenders stated that they had presented proofs to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) of the involvement of Chechen law enforcers in kidnapping Tepsurkaev.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 22, 2021 at 05:23 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Alyona Sadovskaya

Source: CK correspondent