HRC "Memorial": deadlines for investigating extrajudicial execution in Chechnya not met

For more than a month, despite the Criminal Procedure Code, no criminal cases have been filed on the disappearance of Chechen residents who allegedly fell victim to extrajudicial execution. This was reported by rights defenders.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 9, the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" reported that at night on January 26, in Chechnya, at least 27 people detained in connection with an attack on policemen in Grozny were executed. The Chechen authorities called this information a lie.

According to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", even before the publication in the "Novaya Gazeta", relatives of four disappeared persons addressed Chechen Ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiev with a request to help find their sons. On May 23, Nurdi Nukhazhiev forwarded the complaint of the disappeared men's relatives to the Chechen Prosecutor's Office, and on May 25, the complaint was sent from there to the regional department of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).

"And instead of considering the complaints as information about the committed crimes, the ICRF's Department for Chechnya... started to consider them as a 'collective appeal for assistance in protecting constitutional rights'," reported the website of the HRC "Memorial".

"Almost a month has passed since the publication of the 'execution list.' No criminal cases have been initiated," the HRC "Memorial" noted.

As of August 8, the HRC got no new information concerning the fate of the people mentioned in the "execution list", reported Oleg Orlov, a member of the board for the HRC "Memorial".

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.