29 March 2018, 11:07
Investigator dealing with Titiev's case refuses to check video records
The investigator in charge has orally granted one of the two motions submitted on March 20, in which the advocate of the rights defender Oyub Titiev asked to conduct an investigative experiment in connection with Titiev's arguments about the falsification of evidence of illegal drug possession, the press service of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" has stated today.
Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the HRC "Memorial", is under arrest since January 11 on charges of possessing marijuana. He stated that the drug was planted on him by a law enforcer, but investigators refused to initiate a criminal case on his application. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" recognized Titiev to be a political prisoner.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that after his detention, Oyub Titiev was twice brought to the police station, and the fact of his repeated delivery there proves that the drug possession case was falsified, his advocates assert.
The defence doubts the truthfulness of a policeman's testimony that, while standing outside Titiev's car, he saw some "scattered substance of green colour" inside and "a black plastic bag under the right front seat." "It is highly doubtful that, under the circumstances indicated by him, the policeman could see anything inside the car." To verify this, a motion was moved to conduct an investigative experiment," says the statement posted on the HRC's website.
The second motion, asking to examine the computers of the Kurchaloi ROVD (District Interior Division), which should have kept the records of surveillance cameras on the day of Titiev's detention, was orally rejected by the investigator, who told Pyotr Zaikin, an advocate, on March 28 that he had sent him his decision by mail, the HRC "Memorial" reports.
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.
