Dagestan court declines the protest of human rights activist Boliev's lawyers against prosecutor's actions

In the course of the court trial on the case of Boliev which is under way now in Khasavyurt (Dagestan) the court declined the lawyers' petition to recognize the evidence of the prosecution illegitimate.

The judge has declined the lawyers' protest in which they refer to the fact that the evidence on the case of Boliev has been collected illegitimately. In particular, the lawyers claim that the report on the search which states that a grenade was discovered on Boliev has not been signed by all the persons who conducted the search, there is no Boliev's signature either. The lawyers insist that the report has no legal force. In the judge's opinion, the evidence has been collected lawfully.

At the moment, the court has passed an intermediate decision on declining the lawyers' petition. The appearance of witnesses on the case of Boliev is expected now in court.

For reference, Osman Boliev was detained on November 15, 2005 by traffic militia officers under the pretext of checking information about his car which they claimed resembled the one registered as stolen. However, on the way to the Khasavyurt militia station, Boliev's car was stopped by officers of the riot squad. The traffic militia officers handed Boliev over to the riot squad officers and left. The latter brought Boliev to the internal affairs unit of Khasavyurt. At the militia station they searched the human rights activist and discovered a dismantled grenade on him. Initially, they also tried to accuse Boliev of membership in an illegal armed unit.

""Osman is only armed with a pen. It is a terrible armament which he used to write to the European Court. I am sure that this is the reason why they initiated a criminal case against him," stated Sergey Brovchenko to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "Immediately after his detainment on November 15 last year, he was severely beaten and tortured for four hours. He lost consciousness several times. The militia officers, while beating him, said that "his behaviour is wrong." Then they found a fuse and the body of a grenade in two pockets of his coat," related the lawyer.

Lawyer Salimat Kadyrova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent yesterday that she had applied to the Khasavyurt prosecutor's office with a request to initiate criminal proceedings against the Dagestan power authority's officers who had been torturing and beating her defendant. However, as it follows from the response of the prosecutor's office, those facts had not been confirmed in the course of a check.

In the opinion of the defence lawyers, the prosecution files contain a number of strange circumstances. "Firstly, the search was conducted not on the place where Boliev was detained, but at the militia station. Logically speaking, Boliev, when he was following the traffic militia car, could have got rid of the grenade parts, but he failed to do so," runs the statement of the "Public Verdict" foundation. "Secondly, the documents submitted to the prosecutor's office lacked a description of the grenade. Thirdly, the documents submitted to the prosecutor's office for initiating a criminal case lacked examination of the search witnesses (such materials of examination were submitted only several days later). Fourthly, the documents submitted to the prosecutor's office for initiating a criminal case lacked the materials on administrative detainment."

A number of experts think that the cause of the Boliev's charge has been his professional activity. The "Romashka" public organization headed by Boliev has been initiator of notorious court proceedings on the case of kidnapping of Dagestan resident Yaraly Israilov on October 19, 2004 by officers of Khasavyurt department of internal affairs. Boliev, along with Karina Moskalenko, head of International Protection Facilitation Centre, compiled and sent a complaint on the case to the European Court on Human Rights. In addition, Boliev publicly disclosed the fact of murder of Summai Abdurashitova, a 6-year old girl, by Dagestan law enforcement officers during a secret operation on arresting suspected criminals. She was killed on March 14, 2005 in her bed in the village of Solnechnoye, Khasavyurt District, by a fragment of a large-calibre shell. A complaint on the case was also filed in the European Court.