ECHR applicants' relative tortured in Chechnya

The Human Rights Centre Memorial has received information that illegal methods, including psychological pressure, beating and torture, are used in Chechnya against Mekhti Makhmudovich Mukhayev, resident in Zumsoi, temporarily resident in Ushkaloi.

Mr Mukhayev was brought away from the house of his cousin Ilias Agashev in Gikalo on the night of 30 December, 2005. Two UAZ vehicles pulled over near Mr Agashev's house at around 1:00 a.m. A group of military men in camouflage uniforms and masks broke into the house. They pointed a submachine gun at Mr Agashev and began to search the house saying, "Where's Mekhti?" Finding Mekhti, they dragged him out his bed, put him on the floor, his face down, handcuffed him, took him outdoors, barefooted and in underwear, and brought him away without indicating the destination.

On the second day, his relatives managed to find out that Mr Mukhayev had been delivered to Chechnya's Urus-Martan district on the same night. There, a Urus-Martan district court judge ordered to arrest him for 15 days for "disorderly conduct."

After that, the detained man was delivered to the Itum-Kali District Division of Internal Affairs where he was kept for 24 hours before he was transferred to the Federal Security Service division in Chechnya's Shatoi district. A prosecutor told the relatives on 16 January that Mekhti had been transferred to the "central prosecutor's office in Grozny" at 1:00 p.m. on 11 January.

Memorial workers managed to find out on 17 January that Mr Mukhayev had been transferred to the search bureau of the North Caucasus Operating Department of the Main Department of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry in the South federal district on suspicion of committing some crimes under Part 2 of Article 209. The officer on duty at the bureau confirmed that Mr Mukhayev was there. On 18 January, Mekhti was transferred to the temporary detention isolator and a lawyer was admitted to him on 20 January. The detention statement reads that Mr Mukhayev was detained on 13 January. Before that, he had been kept at the Shatoi District Division of Internal Affairs for an administrative offence.

To his lawyer, Ms Zareta Khamzatkhanova, Mr Mukhayev said that he had been tortured and beaten and subjected to psychological pressure while kept at the Shatoi DDIA and the search bureau.

"After the detention, I was brought to the Itum-Kali DDIA and the next morning they took me to the town and brought into a room. There was a man, very respectable-looking, and he asked me, 'Have you drunk?' I answered, 'I don't drink.' They next put me into a car and brought me to the Shatoi DDIA. I was kept there eleven days. All these days in Shatoi, I was beaten, shown pictures, and asked if I knew those people. I answered that I did not know them, as I didn't. My head was swollen, they intimidated me, pointed weapons at me and pulled the trigger, all my internal organs hurt, and I couldn't breathe, but I gave no evidence because I had nothing to say."

In eleven days, Mr Mukhayev was transferred to the search bureau in Grozny where he was tortured with electricity and beaten for three days, according to him.

"I was next brought to investigator Pastukhov and I answered his questions saying that I did not know anything," Mr Mukhayev says. "After that, they brought me back and tortured again, threatened, and kept on saying that I would go missing. They said that federals had come for me and that they wanted to take me to Khankala and I would then go missing. Some Russians next came into the room and those who were torturing me told them, 'Wait a little longer,' and then told me, 'You have to say at least something, they will take you away and you will never come back home, think about your old mother, she will die if you are gone, and think about your children.' I thought that mother would really not stand if I was gone too and probably it would be better to do time than disappear, and then I said that strangers with weapons had broken into my house, demanded food, eaten, and gone away. Then they asked me, 'Who is this?' I answered that I didn't know. In the pictures, I recognised those people who are known to the folk."

According to some case materials, Mr Mukhayev was detained because someone Gamayev had called Mr Mukhayev a member of his armed group. The lawyer who attended one of Mr Gamayev's interrogations claims that he was not able to stand because of beating and torture.

The Human Rights Centre Memorial indicates that Mekhti Mukhayev is a close relative of applicants to the European Court of Human Rights over an abduction case in Zumsoi on 15-16 January 2005, which gives reasons to view the unlawful actions against him as an attempt at revenge or intimidation on the part of law enforcement and security agencies.