Witnesses in Magamadov and Isaev's case doubt investigators' documents

At the session of the court that considers the case of the Chechen bloggers, Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev, accused of aiding a member of an illegal armed formation (IAF), the witnesses have stated that they didn't testify themselves, but signed some pre-prepared papers.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 21, it became known that Salekh Magamadov and Ismail Isaev went on a hunger strike because the court refused to transfer their case to another region. The advocates asked to transfer the case to a court in another region, since they had no hope for an objective trial in Chechnya. On December 24, employees of the Crisis Group "SK SOS" reported that the state of health of Magamadov and Isaev had deteriorated.

At the December 29 court session on their case, witnesses stated that they had not given the testimonies attached to the case personally, but signed some ready-made text given to them by the investigators, the "OVD-Info"* reports citing the press secretary of the Crisis Group "SK SOS".

Earlier, the Chechen authorities, in response to the investigation by the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper on persecutions and murders of people of non-traditional sexual orientation in Chechnya, stated that if there had been any gays in the republic, their relatives would have dealt with them.