A criminal case is opened based on application from Oleg Kozlovskiy, officer of Amnesty International human rights organization, who claimed that he was abducted and tortured in Ingushetia in October of this year. The case is opened on grounds of the elements of especially severe crime under items “a”, “v”, and “g” of part 2 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abduction performed by a group of persons by previous concert, using violence, hazardous for life and health and applying weapons or items used as weapons”). At the present time, the investigative team, consisting of investigators on major cases investigation with the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Ingushetia is conducting the investigation of this case.
On 17 October 2018, Oleg Kozlovskiy, officer of Amnesty International human rights organization, applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. According to him, in the framework of the research project, on 5 October 2018 he arrived to Magas, the capital of Ingushetia, where protest actions were taking place at the time.
According to Kozlovskiy, on 6 October an unknown man knocked on the door of Artis Plaza hotel room and asked him to go outside, allegedly, to meet one of the organizers of the protest actions. According to Oleg, this man brought him to the car, parked not far from the entrance to the hotel, suggested him to wait for the organizer inside, and left.
“As soon as I sat inside, two men in masks and caps jumped in the car, seized my phone and valuables, hit me in the face, forced me to lower myself and look down, so that I did not see where we were going”, – Kozlovskiy said.
According to Oleg, they were driving about 20-30 minutes and stopped in the field: “I was told to get out of the car and lie face down. They told me they would shoot me at attempt to flee”.
According to Kozlovskiy, the abductors held a pistol to his head and forced him to undress: humiliated him, beat him up, and threatened with murder. They made a video record of it all with a mobile phone and then, having received from him a promise not to tell this to anyone, returned for their things in the Artis Plaza hotel and then gave him a ride and dropped him near the airport in Beslan in the Northern Osetia.
On 9 October, Oleg applied to hospital for medical assistance. Doctors registered a rib fracture. On the same day, he applied to the Investigative Committee via the Internet-reception with a complaint where he described what happened to him in detail. However, no one from this organization contacted him. On 30 October, three weeks after his application, Oleg Kozlovskiy received just a letter stating that his application was transferred for consideration of the superior of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Department of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Ingushetia.
On 22 October, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture duplicated the report on crime against Kozlovskiy, having handed it over to officers of Chief Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the North Caucasian Federal District. All applications were submitted for checking to the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Ingushetia. However, neither Kozlovskiy, nor his representatives did not know about the fate of these applications for a long time.
Today, investigator of the Nazran Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Ingushetia Khazbulat Mamatov notified lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Dmitry Piskounov, representing the interests of Oleg Kozlovsky, that on 3 December 2018 the criminal case was opened on the grounds that especially severe crime was committed under items “a”, “v”, and “g” of part 2 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abduction performed by a group of persons by previous concert, using violence, hazardous for life and health and applying weapons or items used as weapons”).
“We are, definitely, satisfied that the criminal case is at last opened. It’s a pity that is was done two months after the incident and that both we and Oleg Kozlovskiy learned about it just now, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Dmitry Piskounov comments. – We hope that the investigative group, formed for investigation of this especially severe crime, will do everything in their power to solve this case. In our turn, we will continue to represent Oleg’s interests in the framework of the already initiated criminal proceedings and plan to take part in the required investigative activities”.