04 July 2018, 19:21
Russian GPO demands verification of Oyub Titiev's case
The Russian General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has studied the conclusion of the Human Rights Council (HRC) concerning the case against Oyub Titiev, the chief of the "Memorial" office in Grozny, and demanded to investigate the circumstances of the rights defender's detention.
Starting from January 11, Oyub Titiev is being kept under arrest on the charge of marijuana possession. The rights defender said that the drugs were planted on him by a law enforcer and filed to the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) a complaint with a request to bring that person to justice. The investigators three times refused to institute a case on the basis of the Oyub Titiev's complaint, and on June 26, the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya dismissed the defence complaint about the investigators' refusal to institute proceedings against the law enforcers.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Human Rights Council under the Russian President considered groundless the refusal to investigate the detention of Oyub Titiev. The investigation into the circumstances under which the chief for the "Memorial" office in Grozny had been detained was incomplete and inefficient, reports the scientific and advisory opinion on the rights defender's case, sent by the HRC to the GPO on June 19.
The Russian GPO responded to the appeal of Mikhail Fedotov, the chair of the HRC.
"Taking into account the fact that no decisions were made concerning the arguments submitted by the leaders of the lower prosecutor's office, with the aim of promptly responding to possible violations of the law, the Prosecutor of the Chechen Republic is instructed to organize a verification of the submitted information and to report the results," states the GPO's letter published today on the HRC website.
The letter was dated June 28 and signed by Vladimir Malinovsky, Deputy General Prosecutor of Russia.
The conclusion prepared by the HRC states that the investigating authorities prejudged the complaint about crimes committed by law enforcers against Oyub Titiev and did not verify it in appropriate way.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 4, 2018 at 01:10 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
