Arrest of advocate Marakov in Chechnya cancelled for formal violations, lawyers suggest

The Supreme Court of Chechnya cancelled the decision to extend the arrest of advocate Sergey Marakov not because it considered the strict pre-trial restriction measure unreasonable, but because of formal violations, lawyers suggest. A wife and a 93-year-old mother of the defendant claimed they had not seen him since his detention.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in December 2020, the court took the advocate under house arrest, but the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya, despite Sergey Marakov’s health problems, replaced his pre-trial restriction measure with detention. In Grozny, a court refused to mitigate the pre-trial restriction measure and left the defendant in custody until June 21.

Sergey Marakov was first arrested for 10 days under the article on petty hooliganism and then accused of drug trafficking. The advocate claimed that the drugs were planted by law enforcers. He associated the criminal proceedings against Sergey Marakov with his client’s professional activities. Human rights defenders shared the advocate’s opinion. One of Sergey Marakov’s latest cases involved land disputes with the authorities in Grozny, his colleague says.

In recent years, in Chechnya, cases are more and more often returned for reconsideration, notes advocate Nikolai Dyakov. According to him, many documents are submitted to the courts with significant violations. The advocate spoke about a case in his Chechen practice, when in the early 2000s, he was to defend a resident of Grozny, accused of beating up a law enforcer.

“During the preliminary investigation, an investigator found that the conflict, as a result of which the defendant hit the law enforcement officer, was provoked by the latter ... Then my client got off with a suspended sentence. However, in my practice in Chechnya, that was the only case when the court took into account the state of health of the defendant,” Nikolai Dyakov emphasized.