Kabardino-Balkaria: suspects of involvement in IAFs complain of torture

In the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), two residents of Karachaevo-Circassia and a resident of Adygea, detained on March 19 in the city of Tyrnyauz, have lodged complaints to human rights organizations saying they were exposed to illegal inquiry methods.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 19, KBR's law enforcement bodies disseminated information that a complex special operation was conducted in the Republic.

"Searches were conducted at 18 addresses. In one of the households in the city of Baksan militants were detected who rendered armed resistance. As a result of a special operation, two militants were liquidated, and a militiaman was slightly wounded. At another address three IAF participants were detained," said a source in law enforcement bodies.

In the case with detention of "three IAF participants", they are residents of the Karachai-Circassian Republic (KCR) Shamil Mambetov and Rustam Gogov, and a resident of Maikop Murat Ristov.

In the letter, addressed to Chaika, Yu. Ya., General Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, Human Rights Centre "Memorial", Russian Ombudsman and Public Prosecutor of the KBR, detainee Shamil Mambetov reports that on March 19, 2009, at 9 a.m. he was detained by law enforcers in Tyrnyauz and tortured.

"Militiamen rushed into the apartment, forced me into "Ural" and took away in an unknown direction. There, they put a black polyethylene bag over my head and started interrogation with use of electroshock to torture me. I was beaten with feet and fists and verbally abused, my human dignity was humiliated. From March 19 to March 21 I was kept in the room handcuffed to a heating radiator, without sleep and food. On March 21, an agent entered the room, and I asked to call a doctor, but he put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me," Mambetov's letter ran.

The author of the letter has added: "According to the certificate of the forensic medical examination conducted on March 27, 2009, at arrival to the investigatory isolation facility of Nalchik, I had the following physical injuries on my body: a graze of the back of my nose, a compound wound of the left-hand part of the lumbar, a graze of the left lower leg and a graze of the right wrist."

Shamil Mambetov states that the criminal case against him was forged and asks Prosecutor's Office to bring militiamen to criminal liability.

"I was detained under administrative procedure for six days allegedly for disobedience to militiamen, and on March 25 a detention protocol was drawn up that certain forbidden subjects - namely, a grenade - was confiscated from me," Shamil Mambetov wrote.

Murat Ristov, a resident of Maikop, another detainee, also sent his complaint to the Public Prosecutor of Kabardino-Balkaria Oleg Zharikov, and then managed to run away.

"From March 5 to March 25, I took a course of treatment by Narzan mineral water in Tyrnyauz because of my skin and liver diseases. My friends, two athletes from Cherkessk, took treatment together with me," wrote Murat Ristov.

Further he reported that on March 19 at 9 a.m. unidentified armed persons in masks broke the door of the apartment, which they rented, rushed into the room and began beating those who were inside.

"When in the study, I heard shouts of my friends, they were beaten and tortured. The person who called himself as Arsen said the same would be with me. When Arsen went out, I didn't hesitate, came up to the window, opened it, jumped out into the street and ran away."

Murat Ristov reports that now he is hiding and asks the Public Prosecutor of the KBR to help him to resolve the current situation.

After special operations conducted in Baksan and Tyrnyauz, Rashid Nurgaliev, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, appeared in one of central TV Channels and said that these operations had confirmed that "harmonious actions of FSB and MIA allow efficiently solving the task of neutralizing IAF participants."