The courts refused to pay compensation to natives of Chechnya ordered by the ECHR.

The Prosecutor General's Office and the courts refused to pay the ECHR-ordered compensation for torture to Chechen natives Zubair Idrisov and Amur Ganayev, even though the decisions on their complaints entered into force before Russia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered compensation of 52,000 euros to Chechen native Zubair Idrisov. The decision was made on December 14, 2021.

In 2022, Russia ceased to be a member of the Council of Europe and decided not to implement ECHR judgments that entered into force after March 15, 2022. Despite a clearly defined deadline, compensation orders issued before this deadline are not being implemented, the Anti-Torture Team* reported today.

Idrisov was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of banditry, illegal trafficking, manufacturing, theft of weapons, and attempted murder of law enforcement officers. In 2021, the ECHR found that Idrisov had been tortured, the investigation was ineffective, he had been unlawfully imprisoned, and his trial was unfair. He was awarded €52,000.

Despite the date of the ECHR ruling, Moscow's Tverskoy District Court denied Zubair Idrisov compensation, siding with the Prosecutor General's Office. The latter insists that "payment contradicts the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation," and that compliance with ECHR decisions is voluntary, according to today's announcement.

A similar situation with non-payment of compensation occurred with Chechen Amur Ganayev. He was detained in January 2006 in Grozny. According to him, security forces beat him and tortured him with electric shocks for ten days. Unable to withstand the torture, Amur signed a confession to the murder. In January 2022, the ECHR also awarded him 52,000 euros, which the court is now refusing to pay, human rights activists emphasized.

Amur Ganayev was tortured into confessing to several crimes, as well as to the illegal acquisition and possession of weapons. On these charges, Ganayev was sentenced to 11 years in prison. The sentence was overturned due to significant violations, but the Supreme Court of Chechnya resentenced Ganayev – this time to six years in prison.

Ganayev was taken to ORB-2 (the operational-search unit of the North Caucasus Operational Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Southern Federal District), which was created in Chechnya in 2001. This structure was not controlled by the local authorities, but rather reported directly to Moscow, according to the author of the blog "Chechnya Inside" on the "Caucasian Knot." "Perhaps not out of concern for people's rights, but even Kadyrov himself has repeatedly stated the need to close ORB because people are tortured there. Since its creation, ORB has gained a bad reputation as a torture center, from which people had a much lower chance of leaving alive than of dying. Those who did manage to do so never left without being subjected to inhuman torture by the Russian military,” he wrote in a post dated January 11, 2022, “The ECHR found Russia responsible for the mass torture of Chechen residents, but our state will not punish anyone”, .

* Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.