Next Monday the Leninsky Court of Grozny is going to commence examining a charge of the Ministry of Interior of Chechnya to defend the honor and dignity against Murad Amriyev who accuses the police officers of abduction and torture. The court hearing is scheduled at 16 hours 30 minutes on 15 December 2014.
(Photo: Murad Amriyev)
The Ministry of Interior of Chechnya applied to the court of Grozny filing a charge to protect its defend the honor and dignity against Murad Amriyev, making a claim for compensation for moral damages. A year ago Murad applied to the Joint Mobile Group with a complaint about illegal use of force and torture against him by the police officers. According to the applicant, the reason for submitting statements of claim to the court is that, allegedly, Murad Amriyev made public the data which became a base for a number of publications in the media.
As we have already informed, Murad Amriev applied to human rights defenders with the Joint Mobile Group in Chechnya (JMG) for legal assistance in September 2013. According to Murad, on 25 August of last year he was abducted and tortured for two days in the building of the Department of Interior in Grozny in Isayeva avenue: he was beaten up, tortured with electricity, hanged from the ceiling and humiliated. He also told that one of his abductors was Magomed Dashayev – Chief of Police of the Department of Interior of Grozny. The police officer suspected the elder brother of Amriyev (who now lives in Germany) of attempting to kill him in 2008. The police demanded from Murad and his family that the elder brother returned home, otherwise the young sportsman should be held responsible for the assassination attempt (Murad is professionally involved in Mixed Martial Arts, recently he became a world champion of MMA according to World Mixed Martial Arts Federation). Under apprehension of his life the young man had to flee out of Russia.
On 29 August 2013 the crime report based on this fact was submitted to the investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the Chechen Republic. Investigation is still ongoing: the Investigative Committee conducts formal checks, ending in ungrounded refusals to initiate criminal proceedings, subsequently quashed by the Prosecutor’s Office, the court, and even the management of the investigative authorities. As of today 12 refusals to initiate criminal proceedings have been issued, the last is dated 6 November 2014.
Meanwhile the representatives of the Department of Interior for the Chechen Republic applied to the court charging Murad Amriyev to defend their honor and dignity. However, none of them attended the scheduled hearings. As a result, on 9 October the court dismissed the charge without prejudice due to the fact that the plaintiff did not attend the court hearings, although he was notified in due course about the time, date and location of the case examination.
But two months later, on 8 December Leninsky District Court without reservation satisfied the application of the plaintiff on quashing the dismissal without prejudice. Notably, the plaintiff did not attend the court hearing this time either.
«For over a year the investigative authorities have been unable to conduct the simplest verification activities based on Amriyev’s complaint, and we receive repeated refusals to initiate criminal proceedings. We are going to appeal to the court about the last decision of the investigator, as well. As to the charge, the claims should be made not against the Amriyev’s family, but to us, the human rights defenders. It is us who published the information about what happened to Murad. But, apparently, the Department of Interior of the Chechen Republic does not want to sue us, more so because it is Nizhny Novgorod, not Grozny», – reported the chief of the Joint Mobile Group in Chechnya Sergey Babinets.
«The situation around the Amriyev case is completely in line with modern Chechen reality, – thinks one of the defendant’s representatives, lawyer with the INGO «The Committee Against Torture» Anton Ryzhov. – We observe the obvious example of the notorious collective responsibility, when for someone’s suspected actions, which have not been proved by any court, the person’s parents or brothers are held responsible».