20:51, 24 December 2023

Court again refuses to consider Debishev’s complaint about torture

A court in Grozny for the fourth time has refused to consider the complaint lodged by Timur Debishev, an actor, who is challenging the investigator’s decision not to initiate a criminal case about torture.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 19, 2023, the Chechen Supreme Court (SC) overturned another refusal to initiate a case on Debishev's statement about torture by the police. On November 26, the SC indicated that the district court in Grozny had unreasonably rejected the complaint about the investigator’s refusal to open a case of torture and returned the complaint to the first-instance court.

In April this year, the SC overturned the lower court's decision, which for the 13th time treated the refusal to initiate a criminal case for the torture of Timur Debishev as legitimate. Human rights defenders then treated this court’s ruling as rare for Chechnya and encouraging.

According to the lawyers of the “Team against Torture” (TaT)*, Debishev’s application is being considered by the Visaitovsky District Court of Grozny, all of the judges of which have already considered various complaints. Lawyers petitioned to transfer the case to another first-instance court.

Let us remind you that in 2018, Timur Debishev, an actor at the Grozny Russian Drama Theatre, stated that he had been tortured by law enforcers. According to Debishev, they found his phone number among the contacts of a drug suspect, after which they tortured him with electric shocks and beat him up, demanding that he hand over his acquaintances-drug addicts.

On March 27, 2023, it became known that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had communicated Debishev’s complaint. In September, the ECtHR awarded him compensation of EUR 52,000, stressing an inadequate investigation into his allegations of torture amid Russia’s refusal to enforce ECtHR’s decisions.

*The "Team against Torture" (TaT, formerly the "Committee against Torture" – CaT) was created by the lawyers who had earlier worked for the CaT, which was included into the register of the NCOs performing the functions of foreign agents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 23, 2023 at 05:44 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot