Relatives of Zeitun Gaev from Kabardino-Balkaria disbelieve in his suicide

Muzafar Gaev, father of Zeitun Gaev from the village of Gerpegezh, Kabardino-Balkaria, has filed application to different instances asserting that Zeitun Gaev could not have committed suicide.

"My son Gaev, Zeitun Muzafarovich, was detained on November 15, 2007, by employees of the UBOP (Police Unit for Fighting Organized Crime) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the KBR (Kabardino-Balkarian Republic). Having learnt about it, I immediately arrived to the UBOP together with an advocate, but the on duty officer told us that my son was not there. However, Zeitun's car was in the UBOP's yard. All the night and the next day, November 16, our advocate Rasul Eldzherukaev was not admitted to Zeitun, on which fact he lodged a complaint to the Prosecutor's Office of the KBR, and addressed the court and the heads of the Bar Association. The right of my son for defence was violently broken," runs the statement received by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"At night, we were informed that our son had died by thrown himself out of the window of the fourth floor of the OVD No. 1, and that another advocate Mokaev was a witness of the accident. We have all the grounds to doubt the truthfulness of this information.

Our son was a believing Moslem and could not commit suicide because of his faith," the father writes.

"Zeitun was not kept at the OVD No. 1; he was kept at the UBOP. Employees of this Department had twice conducted searches of our house; they periodically called up their bosses, swearing and cursing as they failed to find anything. We were presented no protocols of the searches," the statement further runs.

The statement also notes that the advocate invited by the relatives was not admitted to see Zeitun, instead, the power agents "brought their own advocate Mokaev, who was not an on duty advocate on that day, and it later became known that he had come to work for the Bar from power structures. In the presence of this lawyer Zeitun allegedly jumped out of the window.

There were numerous traces from beatings on the body of our son."