The case of the head of the Grozny “Memorial” was transferred to the Investigative Committee of Chechnya

The criminal case of the head of the Grozny “Memorial” Oyub Titiev was transferred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Investigative Committee of Chechnya. This was reported on the website of the Memorial human rights center with reference to Titiev’s lawyer Pyotr Zaikin.

Zaikin was informed about the transfer of the case to the Shalinsky City Court, where he appealed in connection with a complaint about the inaction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs investigators. The lawyercomplained about the inaction of the investigation due to the fact that the investigators did not respond to his request to request video recordings from surveillance cameras of the Kurchaloevsky police department, where Titiev was taken after his arrest on January 9.

According to information available to Zaikin, the decision to transfer the case was made by the deputy prosecutor of the Chechen Republic. Now the investigation will be carried out by employees of the Investigative Committee of Chechnya.

• On the evening of January 22 in Makhachkala, unknown persons set fire to the car of the Memorial representative office in Dagestan. On it, Zaikin traveled to Chechnya from Dagestan to provide legal assistance to Titiev.

The next day, an SMS threat was sent to the number of an organization in Makhachkala: “Next Time, Together with You, We’ll Set Your Office on Fire” ( the original spelling has been preserved ). On January 19, a search was carried out at the organization’s Grozny office. During the investigation, police found cigarette butts that looked like cigarettes that had been gutted and then filled with something, as well as an energy drink can filled with ash. However, none of Memorial’s employees smokes. Journalists coming to the office do so exclusively on the balcony, putting cigarette butts in paper envelopes and not in an ashtray. On January 18, security forces also came to the owner of the premises in Grozny, which is rented by Memorial. They demanded to open the door to the organization’s office and convinced the woman that “she was wrong” because she was renting out the premises to human rights activists. On the night of January 17, unknown masked men set fire to the Memorial office in Ingushetia. The head of the Grozny Memorial, Oyub Titiev, was detained on the morning of January 9. The next day, the police kicked Titiev’s relatives out of the house. They were looking for his son and brother and threatened the human rights activist's relatives with trouble. On the evening of the same day, Titiev was accused of drug possession - a bag of prohibited substances was allegedly found in his car. The court arrested the head of Memorial for two months.