Rights defenders complain about refusal to investigate torture of Nalchik resident

During four years, investigators almost two dozen times refused to launch investigation into a complaint about torture of Nalchik resident Timur Zhambekov, who, like his brother Rustam Kuchmenov, was sentenced on the charge of theft, the “Committee Against Torture” reported.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in December 2017, Rustam Kuchmenov, a resident of Nalchik, appealed to the human rights defenders with a complaint about torture after his detention. The man recognized and pointed to five law enforcers, but none of them was removed from office.

On June 8, lawyers of the “Committee Against Torture” (CaT) sent a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the interests of Timur Zhambekov, a relative of Rustam Kuchmenov, who complained that in June 2017, law enforcers tortured him to force him to confess to thefts, the CaT reported on its website.

According to the human rights defenders, on June 2, 2017, Timur Zhambekov, a resident of Nalchik, was detained together with his cousin and three acquaintances. Law enforcers handcuffed him and put a plastic bag on his head. Then they were beating him in a car and in a room of a law enforcement body, hitting him on his head and body, including with a fire extinguisher. They also tortured Timur Zhambekov with electric current. The torture lasted for several hours, and then Timur Zhambekov signed a confession, the human rights organization reports.

While explaining the reason for filing a complaint to the ECtHR, Magomed Alamov, the head of the CaT’s North-Caucasian branch, said that the human rights defenders failed in seeking a “national-level” investigation into the complaint about torture of Timur Zhambekov.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 9, 2021 at 04:24 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.