Rights defenders achieve revision of Debishev's complaint about torture

The Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya has supported the human rights defenders who demanded to reconsider the refusal to initiate a torture case against Timur Debishev, an actor at the Grozny Theatre, and sent his complaint for a new consideration.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in September 2019, Dmitry Piskunov, the head of the North-Caucasian branch of the "Committee against Torture" (CaT), said that investigators had already refused four times to open a criminal case on Timur Debishev's application about torture after he was detained. Forensic experts confirmed that Debishev had been tortured with electric current, but investigators preferred to accept the law enforcers' version.

On April 14, the Chechen SC cancelled the decision of the Staropromyslovsky District Court, which had dismissed the complaint against the decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case on Debishev's torture, Leisan Mannapova, a CaT's lawyer, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. According to her story, the complaint has been sent for a new consideration to the first-instance court.

Timur Debishev believes that investigators have every reason to initiate a criminal case. "I am outraged by all of this. All the facts are there – they just need to initiate a criminal case. I don't understand why they have been waiting so long [...] the perpetrators will be punished anyway," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 15, 2021 at 00:40 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.