Defence treats compensations to Caucasians-torture victims in colony as meagre

Reacting to complaints of tortured natives of the Caucasus in the Yaroslavl colony, the court has appointed compensation of 65,000 roubles to Khasdin Murtazaliev, and 50,000 roubles – to Arthur Gukasyan. Their defence will appeal against the meagre compensations to victims of torture, one of the advocates has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that for several years now, human rights defenders have made public the facts of torture in one of the colonies located in the Yaroslavl Region, where brutal beatings of prisoners were practiced.

The Zavolzhsky District Court of Yaroslavl has ruled on the lawsuits lodged by two former prisoners, Arthur Gukasyan and Khasdin Murtazaliev; they both had been tortured at Yaroslavl Colony No. 1. They claimed beatings in the colony and went to court for compensations for moral harm, demanding 500,000 roubles each. But on November 11, the court decided that 65,000 roubles would be enough for Murtazaliev, and 50,000 – enough for Gukasyan, the human rights organization "Public Verdict" Fund* reported on the same day on the website "Yaroslavskoe Delo" (Yaroslavl Case).

The total amount of compensation made 115,000 roubles, this is too scanty money, said Irina Biryukova, a lawyer of the "Public Verdict"*, who represented the interests of Gukasyan and Murtazaliev. "We'll appeal against the ruling, as we find it too meagre; we'll insist on the claimed sums," she has added.

* The organization is included by the Russian Ministry of Justice in the “Register of non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent”.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 13, 2021 at 03:24 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.