Rights defenders explain refusal of a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria to report torture

After a refusal to file a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), a person convicted in a case on an attack on Nalchik does not even want to talk to human rights defenders by phone, a lawyer of the Human Rights Centre (HRC)“Memorial”* reports. Another complainant died in a penal colony, while the third complainant was transferred to a penal colony with tougher regime of detention.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in November 2020, the ECtHR communicated 20 complaints from convicts in the case on the attack on Nalchik, who complained about torture and an unfair trial.

In December 2020, Rustam Matsev, a lawyer of the “Legal Initiative”*, reported that law enforcers were forcing the convicts to abandon their claims to the ECtHR. Later, he stated that Khasanbi Khupsirgenov, one of the convicts, was subjected to pressure from law enforcers when his complaint was accepted by the ECtHR. Khasanbi Khupsirgenov was killed in a special operation held in Nalchik and Baksan on July 3, 2021.

The human rights defenders cannot contact the third complainant. “We believe that he is scared,” explained Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer of the HRC “Memorial”*.

The authors of the complaints were convicted on the charge of attacking Nalchik on October 13, 2005, says Natalia Sekretaryova, a lawyer of the HRC “Memorial”*. “The verdict against the applicants was based, inter alia, on their confessions, as well as on the testimonies of other defendants allegedly obtained under torture,” the lawyer noted.

According to Natalia Sekretaryova, the complainants were beaten, tortured with electric current, and law enforcers threaten to shoot them, arrest their relatives, and kill them. One of the defendants was tortured for a month and a half, and the other – for half a year. Unable to withstand the torture, the defendants confessed to participating in the armed attack on Nalchik.

One of the complainants died in the penal colony, while the other, according to Natalia Sekretaryova, was transferred from the penal colony to a prison in the Chelyabinsk Region, with a tougher regime of detention.

* The organization is included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the register of NCOs-foreign agents.