The Investigative Committee investigators are conducting a check with regard to the death of Aleksandr Tselischev from Nizhny Novgorod. According to the mother of the deceased, on 22 October 2020, her son with a friend of his were apprehended by admittedly Drug Enforcement officers and delivered to the building of the Drug Enforcement Department with the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region. Sometime later, under unclear circumstances Aleksandr fell from the window of this building and died.
On 13 January 2021, Lyudmila Tselischeva applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. He told human rights defenders that in the evening of 22 October 2020 her son Aleksandr Tselischev went to the fitness-club and did not return. According to Lyudmila, on the next day, police officers came to her house with a search, after that they informed her that her son was dead and asked her to come for identification. According to Lyudmila, she could not go for identification due to the shock and asked her relative and a colleague to do that, who later on told her that they identified Aleksandr, but he did not have a right eye and his face was embedded inward.
In addition, according to Tselischeva, she learned from the police officers that on 22 October her son and a friend of his were allegedly apprehended by Drug Enforcement Department officers and delivered to the Drug Enforcement Department with the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region, where subsequently Aleksandr fell from the window.
On the same day, his corpse was delivered to the Department of medical forensic expert examination of the Avtozavodsky District. In the death certificate the expert indicated that the death was caused by “a blunt concomitant injury”, “falling from the height with doubtful intentions”.
On 21 January 2021, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied to the Investigative Committee on behalf of Lyudmila Tselischeva with a crime report with regard to the death of her son. At the present time, the investigators are carrying out the pre-investigative check. In addition, human rights defenders applied to the Field investigation unit of Internal Security of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of the RF for the Nizhny Novgorod region with a request to perform an agency check.
“Specific circumstances of Aleksandr’s death are still unknown, including whether he jumped out of the window on his own or someone helped him to. The attempts of the mother of the deceased to receive any information from law-enforcement authorities on the incident investigation have been in vain so far, — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Kristina Diogidze comments. — We shall demand that the investigative authorities establish the circumstances of the incident and conduct a thorough investigation”.