The Supreme Court of Chechnya extended the arrest of the head of the Grozny “Memorial” Oyub Titiev

Judge of the Supreme Court of Chechnya Buvadi Shovkhalov extended the arrest of the head of the Grozny branch of the Memorial Human Rights Center Oyub Titiev until July 25. This was reported in the organization’s Telegram channel.

Oyub Titiev is accused of drug possession (Article 228 of the Criminal Code). He himself says that the police planted drugs on him during his arrest.

Titiev participated in the trial via video link. At the hearing, the judge rejected the defense's request to move the case to another region.

In his petition to postpone the consideration of the case, lawyer Ilya Novikov pointed out the defense’s concerns: the decision in the case of their client may be unfair due to the pressure that local authorities exert on representatives of the judicial system.

In her speech, lawyer Marina Dubrovina stated that in Titiev’s case the presumption of innocence and Article 49 of the Constitution were violated - the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov publicly called her client a drug addict. It asked to postpone the consideration of the case.

The prosecutor asked the court to extend Titiev's arrest. In response to this, lawyer Pyotr Zaikin noted that the prosecutor did not substantiate her demand. The defense attorney also emphasized that the prosecution did not provide any evidence that their client would hide in order to mitigate the preventive measure.

At the end of June, the court rejected the defense's complaints about the extension of the arrest and the refusal to initiate proceedings against the police officers who detained Titiev. The judge refused to attach the resolution of the Human Rights Council under the President (HRC), which stated that the check on Titiev’s application was carried out improperly.

• The head of the Grozny branch of the Memorial Human Rights Center, Oyub Titiev, was detained on January 9. In the morning he was stopped on the road from the village of Kurchaloy to the village of Mayrtup. Police allegedly found a bag of drugs in his car and took the man to the station.
• When Titiev complained that the detention was illegal, the police officers told him: “If you want it according to the law, it will be according to the law.” The human rights activist was forced to drive towards the village of Mayrtup and was detained again - a “legal detention” was staged. Two days later, Titiev was arrested .
• 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. However, none of Memorial’s employees smokes. On March 13, an expert from the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya came to the conclusion that the two seized rolling papers contained marijuana.
• On March 29, the investigator refused to grant the request of Titiev’s lawyer to request recordings from surveillance cameras, which, according to the human rights activist, should show how the police first took him to the police department, and then took him back to the road, where they staged a search of the car and the discovery of drugs.
• On May 18, it became known that his personal belongings, a video recorder and expensive equipment that tracks the route and location of the car were missing from the evidence in Titiev’s case. In addition, the handle and lock of the human rights activist's car were damaged - the door opened without a key.
• On May 24, the investigation reported that it had found no reason to consider the drugs allegedly found in Titiev’s car to have been planted.
• On May 27, Adam Titiev, the nephew of Oyub Titiev, was arrested in Chechnya. According to the official version, during his arrest they found 120 grams of marijuana. The court chose a preventive measure against him in the form of arrest for two months. Titiev was placed in the Kurchaloevsky pre-trial detention center.