Two convicts for attack on Nalchik challenge Russia's arguments at ECtHR

Law enforcers used torture to obtain confessions of participation in the attack on Nalchik in 2005, two convicts indicated in their answers to the questions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), despite Russian authorities' assurances that they had not been tortured.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in November 2020, the ECtHR communicated 20 complaints lodged by convicts for the attack on Nalchik, who had complained of torture, unfair trial, violation of the right to freedom and immunity. In December 2020, Rustam Matsev, an advocate for the "Legal Initiative"*, said that law enforcers are making convicts to abandon their claims to the ECtHR.

One of the convicts, Khasanbi Khupsirgenov, came under law enforcers' pressure, when his complaint was accepted by the ECtHR, said Rustam Matsev, an advocate. Khupsirgenov was killed during the counterterrorist operation (CTO) on July 3 in Nalchik and Baksan. Then, law enforcers announced that five casualties had been militants.

Two convicts for the attack on Nalchik have supported their complaints to the ECtHR.

"The knocked-out testimonies, which both of them later rejected, formed the basis for the harsh sentences," the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" wrote on its website.

"What they did to the applicants – beatings, electric shocks, etc. – should be treated as torture. The applicants presented a successive version of the 2005 events. The state denies that law enforcers were involved in the torture, but did not bother to explain the injuries, received by the applicants," the HRC's message quotes its lawyer, Natalia Sekretaryova.