Relatives of convicts for terrorism accuse Chechen authorities of breaking their promises (+video)

Family members of 14 residents of the Kurchaloi District of Chechnya believed in the promises of law enforcers and gave no publicity to the case in hope of lenient sentences, convicts' relatives told the "Caucasian Knot".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that residents of Chechnya had reported severe sentences passed to 14 young people accused for terrorism. In the video posted on the WhatsApp and made near the courthouse, convicts' relatives and friends express their indignation at the verdicts: women are weeping, and men run after the paddy wagon driving out the yard of the courthouse, knocking on the body thereof.

Earlier, convicts' family members refrained from addressing rights defenders and from spreading information about the case, having believed local authorities and law enforcers.

"After detentions, they assured us that everything would be fine; that they would punish only those who were going to create a militant grouping. Makhma Muskiev was treated as the guilty one; no one knows what happened to him. They promised to punish the rest of them with conditional terms, or to award minor prison terms; but they [set the condition] to us not to spread [information] and not to appeal anywhere. And now, they were sentenced to 9.5-10 years in prison. They simply deceived us," Khamzat, a close relative of one of the convicted residents of Tsotsi-Yurt, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by phone.

"They were accused of terrorism and sentenced to long prison terms, although they had promised that there would be no severe punishment. Officials behaved as villains in relation to us, families. Until the last moment, we hoped that everything would be all right," a woman from the Kurchaloi District told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 13, 2018 at 04:38 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.