Complaint of Dagestani resident Shavri Gadjiev filed to ECtHR

Lawyers of the Human Rights Protection Centre “Memorial” sent a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in a case of Shavri Gadjiev, who in 2020 was sentenced to imprisonment for financing terrorism. Russian courts have violated the requirements of the ECtHR related to the use of the testimonies of anonymous witnesses, the human rights defenders believe.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that a court did not grant the requests of the lawyers to disclose the identities of anonymous witnesses and to recognize as inadmissible such evidence as the law enforcers’ reports. In February 2020, a Moscow court sentenced Shavri Gadjiev to eight years of imprisonment. The defence stated that Shavri Gadjiev was not familiar with a suspected terrorist, to whom, according to the investigators’ version, he transferred 10,000 roubles.

The Human Rights Protection Centre “Memorial” asks the ECtHR to recognize the violation of the principles of a fair trial in the consideration of the Shavri Gadjiev’s case, the “Polny PTs 2.0” Telegram channel reports.

Shavri Gadjiev was involved as a defendant in two criminal cases on financing of illegal armed formations (IAFs), and “both cases began with his kidnapping,” the human rights defenders noted.

“In 2015, Shavri Gadjiev was kidnapped by law enforcers in Dagestan. They beat him and tortured him with electric current, and as a result, the man admitted that he had bought food and distributed money to members of some illegal armed formation,” the human rights defenders recalled.

It should be noted that in November 2019, a lawyer of Shavri Gadjiev pointed out that the testimonies of witnesses were not confirmed and that the defendant’s guilt was justified only by the investigators’ assumption.