11:08, 5 December 2005

Torture confirmed in Kabardino-Balkaria

International human rights organisations and the leading global media received 15 photographs of people arrested in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, Nalchik, with marks of beating. This is what Ms Alexandra Zernova, lawyer of the former Russian prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, reported from London. One of the pictures features her defendant Rasul Kudayev who was arrested ten days after the Nalchik attack.

The lawyer confessed that at first she did not even recognise Rasul whom she had last seen shortly before the October events: "He has a swelling in the lower part of his face, and his features and the proportions of his face are different. Investigators believe that they will able to conceal torture, but the photographs testify against them. We know that he has had his leg broken during torture and now they drag him for interrogations."

Ms Zernova also remarked that having studied this photo evidence western experts had received a clear example of Russia's failure to comply with the convention for the prevention of torture which it had ratified. Now, the lawyer says, the tonality of international inquiries to Russian jurisdictions will be dramatically more severe. Ms Zernova described the degree of lawfulness in Kabardino-Balkaria to be "beyond any law."

The lawyers and parents of people arrested in Nalchik and accused of the 13 October attack have not been able to obtain any replies concerning methods of interrogations from jurisdictions at all levels for more than a month already, GZT.ru reminds.

Kabardino-Balkaria's Internal Affairs Ministry has not only denied torture, but also removed three lawyers from cases of their clients for filing a complaint about illegal investigation methods.

The Ministry even threatened suing Ms Irina Komisarov for her daring to talk to journalists and complain to the prosecutor's office that her defendant was tortured.

Another removed lawyer, Ms Larissa Dorogov, says that arrests in Nalchik and villages continue to date.

The lawyers are waiting for the republican Supreme Court to examine their appeal against their removal. However, they hardly hope that the court will dare to restore their right to take part in the process.

Law enforcement and security agencies also continue to press parents. Thus, Mr Rasul Kudayev's mother, Ms Fatima Tekayev, was summoned to the prosecutor's office on 2 December. According to her, there she was asked how she "dared complain about torture — something she had not seen herself." Besides, she was asked why she "dared apply to Amnesty International".

Detained in Kabardino-Balkaria, Mr Rasul Kudayev, one of the seven former Russian prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, is the main witness in a suit against torture and human rights violations in this prison, Caucasian Knot's correspondent reported earlier.