Yesterday, 27 August 2015, the Basmanny Court of Moscow dismissed Zaur Dadayev’s complaint against the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings due to his report on torture by the law-enforcement agencies representatives.
As we have previosuly reported, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov and Zaur Dadayev, involved in the case of Boris Nemtsov assassination, officially applied to the Moscow office of the interregional nongovernmental organization «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance in connection with illegal violence which they were subjected to.
In particular, Eskerkhanov informed human rights defenders that people in black uniform who took him from the temporary detention center to the Basmanny District Court of Moscow tortured and humiliated him: photographed him naked, set his beard and face on fire, hit him against the back of his neck, lower back and kidneys area. Dadayev, in his turn, informed the members of the Public Investigative Commission of Moscow, and later on – lawyers of the Committee Against Torture and investigative authorities, that on 5 March he was abducted by unidentified security officials, starved for two days while being confided in the basement, handcuffed to the heating radiator, tortured with electricity while the torturers demanded that he confessed of Boris Nemtsov assassination.
In both cases the Investigative Committee investigators conducted checks with the same result: applications to initiate criminal proceedings were dismissed. The court will examine a complaint of lawyer Temirlan Eskerkhanov against the dismissal on 10 September of this year. Yesterday the Basmanny District Court of Moscow examined a complaint of Zaur Dadayev.
In the course of the court hearing both Zaur Dadayev and his lawyer Shamsudin Tsakayev supported the arguments of the previously filed complaint and asked to satisfy it. In justification of the complaint the defense lawyer pointed at the fact that in the framework of the conducted check the investigator did not question Rustam Yusoupov, Dadayev’s fellow worker, who according to Dadayev was kidnapped together with him on 5 March and kept in unidentified location. Yusoupov explained this himself to Tsakayev during the interrogation. However it did not prevent General Bastrykin’s subordinates to state that special investigation activities were conducted, in the framework of which it was established that Yusoupov was not aware of the circumstances of Dadayev’s apprehension. It was not possible to find out at court which special investigation activities exactly were conducted and why Yusoupov was not questioned by the investigator, since the representatives of the Investigative Committee of RF decided that it was not necessary for them to be present at the hearing, although there were a lot of questions to them from Dadayev himself and his lawyer Tsakayev.
Tsakayev also indicated that investigator Stadnikov, who conducted the check, insists that Dadayev was apprehended on 7 March 2015 by investigative officers of the Ministry of Interior of Russia in Nazran’, the Republic of Ingushetia. However, in the opinion of the lawyer and his client this information is false since Dadayev was actually apprehended on 5 March and not at all by the police officers. These arguments are proved by the answer that Dadayev’s relatives received in the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Ingushetia.
«In addition, it was established that the authorities of the Directorate of the Federal Drug Control Service for the Republic of Ingushetia did not conduct actual apprehension of Z.Sh.Dadayev and R.Yusoupov, the officers of this authority only delivered the detainees on 5 March 2015 to the Directorate of the Federal Drug Control Service for the Republic of Ingushetia in order to check their involvement in illegal traffic of narcotic drugs».
Later, on 13 April 2015, Director of the Federal Drug Control Service Victor Ivanov stated: «Operations group does not involve the Federal Drug Control Service representatives. The thing is that we apprehended one of the case participants and handed this Dadayev over to FSB and the Investigative Committee».
However this statement of the head of the Drug Control Service seriously contradicts to the official version, according to which Dadayev was apprehended on 7 March by Moscow police officers. Still, investigator Stadnikov simply paid no attention to these controversy while performing his check.
Dadayev claimed in court that he was not fully questioned by the investigator, since previously he expressed a wish to give testimony only in the presence of lawyer Yevgeny Goubin. However, the lawyer was never allowed to join in the case. The legality of this was later declared by the Moscow City Court. As a result, Dadayev remained questioned only half-way: as he stated yesterday in court, he was not questioned in relation to torture, the investigator asked questions only concerning the fact of apprehension.
The Prosecutor’s Office representative, in his turn, asked the court to dismiss the complaint, however, he did not provide a single answer to questions concerning the incompleteness of the check. The court, having listened to the parties, dismissed Dadayev’s complaint, thus declaring the check conducted based on his statement, full, comprehensive and objective.
Lawyer of the «Committee for Prevention of Torture» Sergey Babinets: «In the framework of the hearing the court did not even consider examining the material of the check conducted by investigator Stadnikov. After all, only by studying the totality of the gathered material it could be established with certainty if the investigator indeed performed all the verification activities required for answering the question whether Dadayev was tortured or not.
In the course of the check in relation to Dadayev’s complaint no forensic medical examination was assigned for establishing the degree of health damage. The claims of the applicant that he was tortured with electricity and that he was beaten up by law-enforcement agencies representatives during the apprehension were not checked. Investigators did not check Dadayev’s claim that he was apprehended on 5 March 2015, and not on 7 March. Witnesses of Dadayev’s apprehension were not questioned or even established. Even Yusoupov who was apprehended together with him was not questioned, who confirmed that on 5 March him and Dadayev were apprehended by armed men and kept in an unknown location for two days, until Yusoupov himself was released on 7 March.
Lawyer Tsakayev will definitely appeal against this court decision. The Committee for Prevention of Torture, in its turn, will be pressing for the check of Dadayev’s statement on tortures applied to him to be conducted according to the law».