Yesterday, on 18 May 2021, the Khasavyurt City Court started to examine a criminal case with regard to the former police officers from Dagestan charged with a battery of Yulduz Kurashova from Khasavyurt and with a forging evidence against her. Kurashova claims that in March 2020 the police officers were beating her up, threatened to kill her or to plant drugs on her and forge a case. Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture represent the interests of the victim in court.
On 8 June 2020, Yulduz Kurashova from Dagestan applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. She told human rights defenders that in the evening of 26 March 2020 she was riding in a taxi with a friend. Suddenly, their car was shaved off and stopped by another car, and two police officers, known to her, dressed in civilian clothes, came out. After that, according to Zulduz, they pulled her out of the taxi and put her in their car by force, and one of the police officers hit her with a fist at the back of her head.
“At that moment I felt pain and a slight contusion. While we were riding a car of these officers, both of them verbally insulted me and threatened they would kill me or torture me”, – Yuldasheva describes.
According to Yulduz, she was taken to the Khasavyurt police department where the police officers were hitting her head and body threatening to kill her or plant drugs to forge a case. She was released home only in the morning of the next day after she signed the documents drawn up on her with regard to the suspicion of drug dealing.
On the same day, a criminal case was opened against Kurashova under Part 1 of Article 234 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“illicit trafficking of high-potent or poisonous substances with intention to sell”) which was subsequently dismissed due to absence of the element of crime.
Later on, based on the results of the medical forensic examination, an expert pointed out that Yulduz Kurashova was registered with “closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, extravasations of the body and the lower limb”.
On 14 April, Kurashova applied to the Prosecutor’s Office with a crime report which was subsequently forwarded to the Investigative Committee.
On 5 June, investigator of the Khasavyurt Interdistrict Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Republic of Dagestan Abdulkadyrov initiated a criminal case under item “a” of Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“abuse of office using violence”) against investigative officers of the Department of the Interior of Russia for Khasavyurt Shamil Aliyev and Ramazan Saypulayev.
Subsequently, the indictment was supplemented by Part 4 of Article 303 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“forging the evidence and the results of investigative activities”), and another defendant appeared in the case – investigative officer of the criminal investigations of the Department of the Interior for Khasavyurt Maya Akhmedova. According to the investigative authorities, she forged documents of Kurashova’s indictment: allegedly, she performed a personal search, but the attesting witnesses said that they were not present at the search and that their signatures on the protocols were forged.
On 19 March 2021, the Khasavyurt Prosecutor’s Office affirmed the indictment on this criminal case and it was sent to court.
Yesterday, the Khasavyurt City Court started the examination of the case on its merits.
“Yesterday, the judicial procedure was identified: at first, the victim’s interrogation, then interrogation of witnesses, examination of written evidence and interrogation of the defendants before oral statements of the parties, – head of the North Caucasus branch of the Committee Against Torture Magomed Alamov comments. – The victim interrogation lasted for the whole duration of the court hearing which lasted for over two hours. It will be resumed on 27 May”.