11:12, 29 May 2004

Local detained, then released in Urus-Martan

On May 24, Said-Ibragim Rasayev, a local resident detained by local police in his house on May 17, 2004, was released from a temporary detention isolator in the town of Urus-Martan, Chechnya.

The man said isolator officers had savagely beat him all the time he was in custody.

A relative of Rasayev, who asked not to disclose her name, said to a correspondent of the Information Center of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship: "After searching for and getting numerous refusals from district police officials and federal officers quartering in Urus-Martan, we turned for help to our relative who is an official at the Chechen interior ministry. Said-Ibragim was set free only after his interference. Asked why Rasayev had been kept in detention, an isolator official said, "It had become known to us that federals wanted to abduct him. And if we hadn't taken him, your son would have disappeared without a trace. We arrested him in order not to let it happen."

Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship