Members of the Public Monitoring Commission (POC) Eva Merkacheva and Andrei Babushkin, who visited the defendant in the case of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, Zaur Dadaev, in the pre-trial detention center, will be summoned for questioning by the Investigative Committee of Russia (ICR) in connection with “interference in the activities of the investigator,” according to the ICR website. on Wednesday.

The investigation intends to carry out investigative actions with human rights defenders in order to find out the motives that guided them in being interested in the circumstances of the case and publishing them, the Investigative Committee said.

The Investigative Committee emphasized that human rights activists were taken to the pre-trial detention center solely to clarify the conditions of Dadaev’s detention. However, at a meeting with the accused, human rights activists, not being participants in the criminal process, became interested in the materials of the criminal case, violating the law, the Investigative Committee said. According to investigators, the actions of members of the PMC can be regarded as “interference in the activities of the investigator in order to impede a comprehensive, complete and objective investigation.” The Criminal Code provides for a maximum penalty for this in the form of arrest for a term of up to six months (Part 2 of Article 294 of the Criminal Code).

In addition, the Investigative Committee emphasized that the investigation is ready to verify the arguments of the accused about the use of violence against them, but only if it receives a corresponding statement from them.

On Tuesday evening, Moskovsky Komsomolets published a text by Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Public Monitoring Committee and a special correspondent for the publication, who visited Zaur Dadaev and the brothers Shagid and Anzor Gubashev in the pre-trial detention center. According to Merkacheva, those arrested reported beatings and torture that were allegedly used against them. In addition, Dadaev stated that he confessed because in return he was promised to release a comrade who was detained with him. According to Dadaev, he expected to declare his innocence in court, but the judge did not give him the floor.

For his part, Andrei Babushkin, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council , wrote on his blog that he asked the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee to check the complaints of torture from those arrested in the Nemtsov murder case.

Dadaev’s statement has already been commented on in the Basmanny Court and the Moscow City Court. Representative of the Basmanny Court Anna Fadeeva explained that the defendant had the opportunity to express his position regarding the investigation’s request for his arrest. “Dadaev was given the floor. Only he thought that a criminal case was being considered, and the judge said that his opinion was needed regarding the investigation’s request to place him in custody,” Fadeeva explained. According to her, Dadaev said that he “did not agree with the investigator’s opinion.” Moscow City Court representative Ulyana Solopova said that the meeting considered the investigation's request for arrest, and not the issue of evidence and guilt of the accused.

Human rights activists will be interrogated by the Investigative Committee for “interference” in the Nemtsov case