Abdul Kostoyev and several relatives of his applied to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture for legal assistance. They said that on 30 August and on 9 September this year armed people wearing black clothes and masks broke into their apartment and garage and beat the men who were in the apartment.
(Photo: Abdul Kostoyev)
We have previously reported on the incident with Murad Ragimov and his father that happened on 30 August, when according to the relatives, the men were severly beaten by the SOBR officers who broke into the apartment. As it turned out, the armed unwelcomed guests visited not only the Ragimovs’ apartment. Apparently, the same officers of SOBR also arrested some people in the Kostoyevs’ apartment, who lived nearby and know the Ragimovs’ family.
According to Abdul Kostoyev, on 30 August he spent the night at the refurbished garage at his uncle’s, Zhabrail (Zhabrail owns an apartment and a garage in the townhouse – author’s note), around 10 a.m. he heard the knock on the garage gates and opened the door. A flashbang was thrown immediately inside, after that a mob of armed people wearing masks and black clothes ran inside, they had no identification markings. Abdul remembers that he was put on the floor at once and handcuffed. Every now and then different people came up to him and asked him questions about training in the camp of Shamil Basayev, participation in the attack on the school in Beslan in 2004, about recruitment of terrorists going to Syria and drug traffic. According to Abdul, people wearing masks started to beat him each time he said he had nothing to do with any unlawful activities.
Kostoyev said: “Three officers took me to the entrance of the garage and started to hit me and kick me all over my body. They mostly beat the right part of my body because I was lying on the left side after I had fallen. They also used electric shockers, the electric shock was given mainly to the back and to the legs. At the same time they tried to force me to confess to committing various crimes.”
According to Abdul, seven people were arrested and beaten in his uncle’s apartment and garage on that day; all of them were released the same evening after the officers of the department of the Ministry of Interior in Mitino district had taken their fingerprints, footprints and samples of saliva.
However, the story was not over, yet. Early in the morning, on 9 September, unknown officers of the law-enforcement authorities broke into the Kostoyevs’ apartment again – according to Eragi Kostoyev, who arrived in Moascow from Ingushetia to get some medical treatment for his son.
– Around 6 a.m. on 9 September I woke up because I was kicked on my leg. I opened my eyes and saw people wearing black clothes, with shields and guns aimed at me. They flashed their torches at me. I tried to cover the child with my body, – Eragi Kostoyev describes the situation.
According to the witnesses’ evidence, in the course of another search the officers beat the inhabitants of the apartment with their legs, and the inhabitants were handcuffed lying on the floor in the sitting room. The story repeated except that the only person arrested that time was Bagautdin Kostoeyv, the cousin of the owner of the apartment. He is suspected in storing a gas gun modified as a combat pistol.
The lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, Dmitry Piskunov: “When I interrogated the victims in the apartment where the arrest was performed, a six-year old son of the owner of the apartment came back from a stroll. The boy was so scared by the presence of an unknown man that he started crying and tried to run away back in the street. Apparently, those two special operations of law-enforcement authorities could not but impact the health of the child. We will do our best to learn what happened and if the information proves to be true, we are going to ensure the accountability for the perpetrators of these crimes.”