Authors of film “Fathers and Sons. And Torture” recall murder of Gasanguseinov brothers in Dagestan

In the film “Fathers and Sons. And Torture”, the “Team Against Torture”* recalled the murder of the Gasanguseinov brothers in Dagestan, which has remained unsolved for more than five years already.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that 17-year-old and 19-year-old brothers Nabi and Gasangusein Gasanguseinov were killed in a special operation conducted in August 2016. The law enforcement bodies declared those killed to be militants, but the brothers’ parents insist that the young men were shepherds and grazed cattle in the mountains. In November 2019, pickets were held in Dagestan with the demand to conduct an investigation into the case. 

As a result, a disciplinary sanction was imposed on the chief of the police department, who reported about the killing of the brothers as militants. Murtazali Gasanguseinov, a father of the killed brothers, demands to institute a criminal case against the above chief of the police department, but has already been refused four times.

In the film “Fathers and Sons. And Torture”, Djambulat Gasanov, the head of the human rights organization “Right and Law”, said that many people gathered at the place where the brothers were killed, but law enforcers took away the bodies.

“They beat women on their hands to take away the bodies,” Murtazali Gasanguseinov is quoted in the film. According to the father of the killed brothers, the law enforcers opened fire in the air.

The film also tells the story of brothers Roman Chikviladze and Valiko Baigulov. Their father suspected the brothers of stealing 5000 roubles and filed a complaint to the police. The brothers say they were tortured with electric current and were kicked in the crotch when law enforcers tried to force them to confess to the crime. Lawyers of the “Team Against Torture”* succeeded in requesting real terms of punishment for the policemen who tortured the brothers.

*The “Committee Against Torture” (CaT) was included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the register of NCOs, performing the functions of a foreign agent. The lawyers who previously worked for the “Committee Against Torture” created the “Team Against Torture”.