The Prosecutor’s Office of the Akhmatovsky District of Grozny declared enforced delivery of Zarema Musaeva, wife of former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev and mother of former lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Abubakar Yangulbaev, to Chechnya from Nizhny Novgorod, to be legal. Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Sergey Shounin received the corresponding resolution.
In addition, in the beginning of February, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture submitted several motions to the Nizhny Novgorod Department of the Investigative Committee requesting to perform checks, but no feedback was provided on them. Before that, the Nizhny Novgorod Department of the Investigative Committee forwarded all the applications to the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office, that is why, according to lawyers, the motions will not be most likely satisfied. It means that the Nizhny Novgorod investigators will not examine videos, perform medical forensic examination, question witnesses and police officers who detained Musaeva.
Lawyers with the CAT tried to appeal the redirection of applications to the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office, however, the court removed two complaints from consideration under various pretexts.
In addition, lawyers appealed against inaction of head of Department of Interior for Nizhny Novgorod, because he did not inform them about the ruling taken based on the crime report. However, the court did not accept this application for consideration, either. Due to this inaction lawyers failed to familiarize themselves with the materials of the police check. In addition, lawyers submitted complaints against inaction and abuse of office by police officers who took Zarema Musaeva and attempted to take Saidi Yangulbaev from his home to Chief Directorate of the Interior for the Nizhny Novgorod region.
In addition, lawyers with the Committee appealed against the ruling bringing Zarema to administrative responsibility for disorderly conduct (part 1 of Article 20.1 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation) and submitted a crime report to the District Investigative Department of Nizhny Novgorod due to violation of Saidi Yangulbaev’s house integrity.
— The fact that the report on abuse of office by the Chechen police officers was redirected to Chechnya was unpleasant and alas, expected event. That is why we submitted a separate crime report, where we emphasized the violation of integrity of the house of the federal judge. The crime scene obliges the investigation to conduct the check here, in Nizhny Novgorod. Now we are facing active inaction of law-enforcement authorities, which we will continue to appeal against, — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Sergey Shounin commented.
Now, the Committee Against Torture appeals against the inaction regarding to the submitted motions and the court rulings dismissing the applications. In total, lawyers submitted 10 motions, 21 applications, 11 submissions, two requests and seven statements.
In addition, the Committee Against Torture received medical documentation of Zarema from the General Prosecutor’s Office. These documents show that doctors examined Musaeva, performed medical tests and gave her medicines. Thus, the General Prosecutor’s Office executes the requirements of the ECHR to provide Zarema with medical assistance and allow a lawyer to her, despite the suspension of the Russian membership in the Council of Europe.