Judge admits failure to find key witness in Oyub Titiev's case

The Judge, who is considering the case of Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", told about futile search for a witness who allegedly saw Oyub smoking marijuana. Swedish rights defenders from the organization entitled "Civil Right Defenders" came to visit the court session.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Oyub Titiev's case is being considered by the court since July 19. On August 22, the Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, blamed the rights defenders, who had criticized the work of law enforcers the attacks on policemen, as enemies of his republic. He put human rights activists on a par with militants and forbade them to visit Chechnya.

The case of Titiev has caused a great resonance; it is monitored by foreign diplomats.

Earlier, Kadyrov publicly called Titiev a "drug addict." In his January interview with the Daily Storm, the head of Chechnya, referring to some witness, said that "Titiev smoked marijuana."

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 6, 2018 at 11:44 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.