Father of abducted Nazran woman challenged Russian authorities' arguments at ECtHR

Lawyers of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" have sent their objections to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the request of the Russian authorities to dismiss the complaint in the case of the abduction of Zalina Elkhoroeva, a resident of Ingushetia. Her father insists that his daughter was killed by law enforcers.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Zalina Elkhoroeva, a resident of Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, was abducted in December 2010. Several weeks later, her father, Idris Elkhoroev, stated that special services were behind the abduction.

According to the complaint, Elkhoroeva was abducted by armed people near the settlement of Novy in North Ossetia after a road-and post service (DPS) inspector stopped the taxi van, in which the woman was travelling. The taxi driver and other passengers were told to wait at the police post at the "Chermen Circle", but they never saw the woman again.

The criminal case on Elkhoroeva's abduction was initiated only a month and a half later, on February 7, 2011, and the venue was examined in another month – on March 10. Only on March 23, investigators received a printout of telephone conversations from Zalina's mobile phone on the abduction day. None of those with whom she spoke were ever questioned, although there was an FSB officer among them. In August 2012, the preliminary investigation was stopped "due to the failure to identify the person to be involved as the accused one," the HRC "Memorial" has reported on its website today.

Idris Elkhoroev complained to the ECtHR in 2018. Russian authorities, while responding to ECtHR's questions, ignored the merits and asked to dismiss the complaint for formal reasons. Idris Elkhoroev and lawyers of the HRC "Memorial" have explained to the ECtHR that the appeal deadline had not been missed, and there were no grounds to reject the complaint.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 20, 2020 at 08:28 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.