Defence convinces investigators to study video of Datsiev's beating

The lawyers of the Committee against Torture (CaT) have joined the inquiry into the attack on Sirazhudin Datsiev, the head of the Dagestani office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", as his representatives. They suggest that law enforcers could be involved in beating up the rights defender.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Sirazhudin Datsiev was beaten up on March 28 near his home and hospitalized.

Rights defenders from the HRC "Memorial" and the CaT have conducted their own inquiry into the attack, and, according to the preliminary results thereof, there are grounds to believe that law enforcers could be the attackers. In this regard, the CaT's lawyers have joined the official investigation as representatives of Sirazhudin Datsiev, the CaT reported on May 23.

The version of law enforcers' involvement is supported by "the attackers' professionalism and training," as well as a record from a street surveillance camera, which shows that one of the attackers, who came to the venue in a black "Priora" car, left the car through the back door by initially driving down the window in order to open the door from outside. "This fact has drawn rights defenders' attention, since the inside door handles, among other things, are usually removed from inside police cars, so that detainees could not open the door and run away," reads the press release posted on the CaT's website.

to Albert Kuznetsov, a CaT's lawyer, the defence has asked the investigator to study the video records from the external surveillance cameras installed at the venue of the attack.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.