Human rights defenders treat court’s decision in missing Chechen Umarov’s case as unlawful

In Grozny, a court has dismissed a complaint about the investigator’s refusal to present for examination the materials of a criminal case on disappearance of Movsar Umarov. The investigators are not interested in investigating cases that could prove the law enforcers’ involvement in the disappearances of people, human rights defenders suggest.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in April 2024, in Grozny, a court recognized the investigator’s refusal to provide Eset Umarova with all the materials of the criminal case on the disappearance of her son Movsar Umarov as unlawful. On April 7, 2020, it became known that Movsar Umarov’s mother asked the law enforcers bodies to resume the investigation into the case on the disappearance of her son. However, the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya dismissed the Eset Umarova’s motion.

Since April 2024, no new details have been discovered in the case on the Movsar Umarov’s disappearance, the “Team Against Torture”* reported.

A human rights defender from Chechnya notes that there have been no cases yet in which investigators recorded important details in materials of cases on the disappearance of people in the region that would indicated the law enforcers’ role in those crimes.

“That is why they refuse to present case materials for examination. There is simply nothing to show,” the human rights defender stated.

He suggests that since the investigative actions were carried out in Chechnya, no such details as mentioned above can appear in case materials.

“This circumstance makes it impossible for any information about the law enforcers’ involvement to appear in case materials,” the human rights defender noted.

Svetlana Gannushkina**, the chair of the “Civic Assistance Committee”***, agrees with the above human rights defender’s opinion.

“Since it is dangerous for law enforcers, no one undertakes to investigate such cases,” Svetlana Gannushkina** suggested.

Earlier, Eset Umarova has stated that her son was detained on July 18, 2020 for viewing the blog of Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a critic of the Chechen authorities. The woman suggested that her son Movsar Umarov fell victim to an extrajudicial execution.

*The “Team against Torture” (TaT, 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.

***On April 20, 2015, information appeared on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of the Russian Federation that the “Civic Assistance Committee” was included in the list of foreign agents.