“Caucasian Knot”: detainees as part of the anti-drug campaign in Chechnya are tortured with electric shock in the basement and taken to lectures by the mullah

Those detained as part of the anti-drug campaign in Chechnya are kept in a basement and tortured with electric shock, a resident of Grozny, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Caucasian Knot.

The man was detained at a bus stop after a friend asked him to give his friend “some pills.” According to the interlocutor of the Caucasian Knot, he and about two hundred other detainees were kept in the basement.

“There was dirt everywhere, high humidity, a terrible stench. One of them became ill; in response to our requests for help, [the security forces] said that it was not their problem. The detainees are shocked there, and then taken from the basement to a large room, and there the mullah reads the Koran and talks about the dangers of drugs. And this can continue for days, and for some, weeks,” he noted and added that those “who were caught selling drugs” are treated especially cruelly.

After two weeks in custody, the Grozny resident was released. “No one explained anything, no one apologized,” he concluded.

A law enforcement official, in a conversation with the Caucasian Knot, denies torture of detainees. However, he noted that “sometimes innocent people are detained” and released after trial.

previously Republic wrote about the torture of brothers Magomed-Ali and Magomed-Sadiq Mezhidov, who were also detained during the anti-drug campaign. After their arrest in mid-August, they were tortured with electric shocks and beaten at the police station in the Shalinsky district of Chechnya. Subsequently, Megod-Ali was accused of selling drugs (clause “b” of Part 3 of Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code), and Magomed-Sadiq was accused of possession (Part 2 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code).

The Chechen police denied these data, calling the information about the torture of the brothers “another attempt to smear employees of the internal affairs bodies in the eyes of the public.” Ramzan Kadyrov’s press secretary Alvi Karimov also said that “attempts at drug sabotage from outside” are being organized on the territory of the republic and drugs are being distributed free of charge.