21:53, 26 July 2018

Court leaves Oyub Titiev under arrest

Oyub Titiev. Photo by the press service of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial"

The Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya has denied the defence's request to transfer Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", under house arrest and left him in custody until December 22.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 9, the Shali City Court of Chechnya extended Oyub Titiev's arrest until December 22. Earlier, the SC of Chechnya refused to consider Titiev's case outside of Chechnya and extended his arrest until July 25.

Since January 11, Oyub Titiev is under arrest on charges of possessing marijuana. He refuses to plead guilty asserting that the drug was planted on him by a law enforcer. According to his advocates, the case must be considered outside of Chechnya, as the republic's leadership has repeatedly insisted on Oyub Titiev's guilt.

The defence asked the SC to release Titiev from custody, noting that the first instance court did not even consider any other freedom restriction measure for him, the HRC "Memorial" reports.

"The prosecution has failed to justify the arrest extension; there is no evidence that Titiev is going to escape," said Pyotr Zaikin, one of the advocates.

The defence has also noted that Titiev's case had been brought to the court, and he cannot exert pressure on the witnesses, in spite of the opinion of the prosecutor's office.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 26, 2018 at 06:11 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.