23:12, 3 August 2023

Judge refuses to consider torture case of Chechen actor Debishev

Timur Debishev. Photo from social media https://pytkam.net

The complaint against the refusal to initiate a case of torturing Timur Debishev, an actor, has been once again returned by the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya to the Visaitovsky District Court of Grozny. However, the judge who had received the complaint has withdrawn himself by using a formal pretext, Ekaterina Vanslova, a human rights defender, has informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Chechen SC annulled the decision of the first-instance court, which for the 13th time found the refusal to initiate a criminal case on the torture of Timur Debishev as legal. Human rights defenders have treated this SC's decision as rare for Chechnya and encouraging.

In 2018, Timur Debishev, an actor of the Grozny Russian Drama Theatre, stated that he had been tortured by law enforcers. According to his version, law enforcers had found his phone number among the contacts of some woman, suspected of drug dealing; they tortured him with electric shocks and beat him up, demanding to give up the drug addicts he knew. While studying Debishev's contacts, operative agents became interested in his acquaintances from the "Nokhcho" Folklore Ensemble. At least one of them, Tamerlan Amaev, was beaten up by security forces in Timur's eyes.

On July 19, the SC of Chechnya overturned another refusal to open a case on Debishev's application about torture at the police. The above first-instance court was obliged to consider this issue for the third time. However, the judge has recused himself, as he recollected that he had earlier considered a similar complaint in this case, Ekaterina Vanslova, the head of the North Caucasian branch of the "Team against Torture"*, told the "Kavkaz.Realii"** project.

Debishev's case is a typical example of how investigators, not wanting to initiate a case, avoid considering a complaint in court, Oleg Orlov, a co-chairman of the "Memorial" Centre for Human Rights Defence, noted in September 2022.

*The "Team against Torture" (formerly the "Committee against Torture" – CaT) was created by the lawyers who had earlier worked for the CaT, which was included into the register of the NCOs performing the functions of foreign agents.

**Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 3, 2023 at 03:38 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot