10 April 2024, 17:32
Seda Suleimanova's friend denies version of her repeated escape
The version by Seda Suleimanova's relatives that she has run away again looks implausible, her friend, Lena Patyaeva, has stated. According to Lena, Seda had said more than once that her relatives could kill her.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in Chechnya, an investigator had summoned Patyaeva for questioning within the case of Seda Suleimanova's murder after she was taken away by relatives from Saint Petersburg and stopped communicating. Human rights defenders reported that on February 6, 2024, journalists called Suleimanova's family; and two of her relatives stated that the girl was next to them, but they refused to give her the phone.
On February 7, the SK SOS Crisis Group* reported that sources in Chechnya had voiced a version of Seda Suleimanova's murder by her relatives. Human rights defenders demanded from the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) and the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) to check the information about a possible "honour killing". After a check, the GPO stated that Suleimanova had voluntarily left Saint Petersburg for Chechnya.
The version of Suleimanova's relatives that the girl had left home again on February 5 does not stand up to criticism, Lena Patyaeva told the "Sota" outlet.
After her relative came to Seda's workplace, she was forced to return to the shelter of the SK SOS Crisis Group*.
"After an attempted abduction and prior to the successful one she lived for months in the shelter ... We became friends by correspondence during this time. In the spring, she decided to leave the SK SOS Crisis Group*," Lena Patyaeva has explained, adding that when she saw Seda's photo with the Chechen Ombudsperson, "everything broke inside me." "As a person who knows her, I can say that she doesn't look like herself at all ... Her appearance reeks of something so depressing, terrible, some kind of hopelessness; she looks like a beast at bay," Lena has noted.
On August 29, 2023, Mansur Soltaev, the Chechen Ombudsperson, stated in his report about his meeting with Seda Suleimanova that the girl was not in danger and quite safe. Human rights defenders then noted that Soltaev had posted not a video of the meeting but only a photo in which a mark similar to a haematoma was visible on the girl's neck.
*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 8, 2024 at 11:47 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: Caucasian Knot
