19 March 2008, 21:46
Chechen human rights activists ask Kadyrov to investigate tortures in ORB-2
The NGO Board under the Ombudsman and the Public Chamber of Chechnya ask Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to investigate the activities of Ahmed Khasambekov who headed the ORB-2 (Operations and Search Bureau) in 2000-2007.
The Ombudsman's press service reports that this was announced on March 18 at a special sitting of the Public Chamber and NGO Board held at the Office of Ombudsman in Chechnya.
"Within these years we had received plenty of applications from residents of the Chechen Republic with complaints against illegal arrests, keeping in custody and violent knocking-out of evidences from the persons kept at the ORB-2 or their relatives. We are convinced that the practice of pressure and torture during the investigation with the aim to get confessions, when such evidences than become the basis for verdicts, is absolutely inadmissible," the participants of the sitting said.
They also condemned the illegal SIZO (pre-trial prison) that functions in the territory of the ORB-2 and noted that despite the change of the manager of the department, tortures are still registered there.
The human rights activists were indignant that former head of the ORB-2 Khasambekov was appointed to the position of Deputy Head of the Chief Department of the Russian Ministry of Interior for the South Federal District.
