ECtHR awards EUR 170,000 to four residents of Chechnya as compensation for torture

Residents of Chechnya, Eldar Orazbaev, Muslim Zulkarnaev, Timur Satabaev and Umar Chapanov, complained to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) about the torture by law enforcers, who demanded from them to plead guilty under terrorism cases.

The ECtHR has awarded 170,000 euros to the above Chechens, who had complained that in 2002-2006, law enforcers forced them under torture to confess to involvement in terrorism.

Orazbaev stated that in 2004, he was detained for possessing weapons and taken to Chechnya, but already under the case of belonging to an illegal armed formation (IAF). According to his story, they put a bag over his head, chained him to a radiator, beat him up with truncheons and a shocker. A year later, he refused from his testimonies; and he was again beaten up by law enforcers.

Zulkarnaev complained that in 2006, he was detained, chained to a radiator and beaten up. A month later, he refused from his testimonies; he was taken to Chechnya and was also beaten up there.

According to Satabaev, he was detained in 2002 in Grozny during a special operation. He complained that he had been chained to a radiator, beaten up with water bottles and an electric shocker; they extinguished cigarettes against his back and forehead. He signed his confessions without reading them.

Chapanov was detained in Shali in September 2005. Law enforcers demanded from him to confess to a robbery and beat him up with plastic bottles with water, used an electric shocker, strangled him, and extinguished cigarettes on him. Besides, according to his story, they threatened to rape his pregnant wife, if he refused from his confessions.