’No one wants their ear cut off’

Torture of Moscow terror suspects recalls handling of St. Petersburg subway bombing case, rights activist say

The day after the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall music venue outside Moscow, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that 11 suspects had been arrested. A short while later, videos of the suspects being tortured began to appear on pro-government Telegram channels. Russian human rights activists have long reported on the violent tactics used by Russia’s security services, but in the past, these agencies tried to conceal their unlawful conduct. After the 2017 St. Petersburg subway bombing, suspects also claimed they were tortured, but the authorities were careful to keep any evidence out of the public eye. Meduza explains the parallels between the two cases and what they tell us about the potential trajectory of the current investigation.

Caution: The following text contains descriptions of extreme violence.

Public torture

“They’re bringing in these non-humans soon,” a spokesperson for the Moscow courts wrote to journalists on March 24. He was referring to the four Tajikistani citizens arrested in connection with the terrorist attack that took place just two days earlier. In photos and videos from the courtroom, the men show visible signs of torture. Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev’s face is covered with bruises and pieces of a plastic bag hang around his neck. Shamsidin Fariduni’s cheek is severely swollen and Saidakrami Rachabalizoda’s ear is bandaged. Muhammadsobir Fayzov is brought in on a stretcher, wearing a catheter.

The day after the terrorist attack, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that the suspects had been apprehended. Within hours, photos and videos of men in uniforms torturing the suspects began circulating on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. In one video, a person wearing camouflage is shown cutting off Saidakrami Rachabalizoda’s ear and forcing it into his mouth. Another video shows Shamsidin Fariduni lying on the floor and being electrocuted, with clamps attached to his genitals and limbs. Despite the evidence of torture, the court only reported that two of the defendants have pleaded guilty to all charges: Saidakrami Rachabalizoda and Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev.

While there are only four suspected shooters, the FSB announced that 11 people were arrested in connection with the terrorist attack: in addition to the four alleged gunmen, a man who rented an apartment to one of the suspected attackers and the former owner of the perpetrators’ car is also in custody, along with his father and brother. The other alleged suspects have yet to be publicly identified.

The Russian authorities almost never comment on reports of violence against those in official custody. Human rights activist Roman Shirshov told Meduza he was surprised to see photos and videos evidencing torture published on pro-Kremlin channels. Shirshov worked for the St. Petersburg branch of Russia’s Public Monitoring Commission, an official prisoners’ rights watchdog, from 2016 to 2022, and remembers the Russian authorities doing everything possible to keep word of torture from getting out. They’d force prisoners to attribute their injuries to some other cause, threatening them with more jail time or promising to make their lives “hell” if they didn’t cooperate.

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In the past, Russian security forces rarely faced prosecution for unlawful violence. But Shirshov now has the sense that they’ve completely lost all of fear of suffering any consequences. Devices like the one used to electrocute Shamsidin Fariduni were once the subject of rumors, he said, but in this case “everything was put out in the open, even though this is a real crime.” “I believe it was done intentionally,” Shirshov added. “People have become very tolerant of violence. There’s an enemy, and there’s the state. If the state is ‘good,’ it can do anything, even torture people.”

Yana Teplitskaya, a human rights activist and Shirshov’s former colleague, agrees. In her opinion, Russia’s war in Ukraine has “greatly accelerated” the normalization of violence in Russian society. “I feel disoriented because I’ve never lived in a society where torture wasn’t hidden,” she said.

The St. Petersburg 11

On April 3, 2017, a bomb went off in a subway car between St. Petersburg’s Sennaya Ploshchad and Tekhnologichesky Institut stations. Fifteen people died in the attack, and around 100 were injured. The alleged suicide bomber, Akbarjon Jalilov, died in the explosion. However, security forces claimed he had accomplices who planned to carry out further attacks.

The 11 people arrested in connection with the bombing were all from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, though some of them held Russian citizenship. More than half of the accused were neighbors. Only one, Ibragimjon Ermatov, admitted to knowing Jalilov, saying they’d worked together at a cafe two years before the attack.

All of the defendants insisted they were innocent. Two of the accused, brothers Abror and Akram Azimov, claimed that before they were formally arrested, they’d been tortured in a “secret FSB prison.” When the subway bombing trial began in the spring of 2019, the defendants, who’d been held in Moscow jails during the investigation, were transferred to St. Petersburg. “I heard that some of the defendants had been tortured,” Shirshov recounted. “So, when they were brought [to St. Petersburg], we decided to visit them [in pre-trial detention].”

On March 30 and 31, 2019, Shirshov and Teplitskaya spoke with some of the suspects, including 28-year-old Muhammadyusup Ermatov. Shirshov described Ermatov, who also claimed that he’d been tortured in a “secret FSB prison,” as an “ordinary guy.”

In early April 2019, Shirshov and Teplitskaya appealed to Russia’s Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate Ermatov’s claims and hold those responsible for torturing him to account. However, just like in the case of the Azimov brothers, the request was denied due to a lack of “evidence of a crime.”

Other defendants also reported being tortured and threatened while in custody. Makhamadyusuf Mirzaalimov said that after his arrest, he was beaten by a group of four investigators, one of whom wielded a bat, while another held a dagger. “They said: ‘On your knees!’” he recounted. “Then they handcuffed me behind my back and started pulling my body in the opposite direction. Three of them beat me, but I didn’t know anything so I couldn’t tell them anything.” Officers also reportedly beat up his two roommates.

“We monitored the detainees, visited them regularly, and interviewed them,” said Shirshov. Rights activists tried to stop the security forces from pressuring the suspects, he added, but as prisoners accused of terrorism they were especially vulnerable to abuse. As Shirshov explained, if someone’s considered a terrorist, there’s a prevailing notion that “you can do whatever you want to them.”

When the human rights activists visited the pre-trial detention center again in May, one of the suspects tried to tell them what had happened to him in Moscow, but jail staff forbade him from answering some questions about alleged abuse. A month prior, Shirshov and his colleague faced similar problems when trying to interview Abror Azimov about the alleged torture he experienced in a “secret FSB prison.” Supervisors interrupted the conversation, saying the activists were “violating the law.”

In December 2019, a court sentenced the defendants in the subway bombing case to prison terms ranging from 19 years to life. However, activists from the human rights organization Memorial maintained that the accusations against nine of the 11 suspects were never proven. No one was ever held accountable for the illegal violence against the defendants.

“I tried to get to the bottom of the situation, and I think they tortured and sentenced people who weren’t involved in the deaths of St. Petersburg residents,” Teplitskaya told Meduza.

‘Direct parallels’

Both Yana Teplitskaya and Roman Shirshov say the arrest of 11 suspects in connection with the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall reminds them of the St. Petersburg subway bombing case. “In many cases, the FSB says it has arrested 11 suspects,” said Teplitskaya. “I don’t know why. There were some theories that there’s some bureaucratic reason for this. To me, this number indirectly points to falsification.”

“There are direct parallels with the St. Petersburg terrorist attack,” agreed Shirshov. According to him, in both cases, the FBS arrested people whose involvement in the crime is highly doubtful. For example, the former owner of the car used on the day of the attack (and his family members), as well as the owner of an apartment rented by one of the St. Petersburg suspects.

“Everything is unfolding in the same manner,” Shirshov said. “They’ll probably arrest everyone: acquaintances, and friends [of the four suspected attackers], people they texted. The investigation has its story, and everything will be tailored to it. That’s how it works: they’ll extract the testimonies they need under torture or threats of torture.”

“But where there’s torture,” Shirshov added, “there’s no investigation.”

As Shirshov recalled, when the defendants in the St. Petersburg subway bombing case went on trial in 2019, they had a group of people supporting them. Activists created a website where they detailed inconsistencies in the case and instances of torture. According to Shirshov, these people are still in contact with the accused and continue to assist them. “People are in jail, and they’ll be there for a long time,” he added.

But Shirshov strongly doubts that anyone could come together to defend the rights of those accused of the recent Moscow terrorist attack. “Nowadays, forming a large group, especially an open one, is impossible,” he said.

That said, it’s always been dangerous to defend terrorism suspects in Russia. On the activists’ website for the St. Petersburg case, there are accounts of family members facing pressure from the authorities for attempting to help the defendants.

The suspects in the Crocus City Hall attack are facing a similar situation. “Not a single defense lawyer has volunteered [for the case],” reported state news agency TASS, citing a Moscow court’s press service. (State-appointed lawyers represented the accused during the remand hearings.)

“The problem is fear,” said Shirshov. “It seems to me that no one wants to have their ear cut off, too. So, in this case, there are so-called ‘token’ lawyers who will just sit there and say nothing.”

Indeed, even the suspects’ state-appointed defense lawyers have begun receiving threats. Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council, wrote that people are demanding the lawyers refuse to represent the alleged terrorists. “Otherwise, they threaten they’ll ‘cut off their ears’ and do other horrific things to them and their families,” she said.

Shirshov said the defendants in the Crocus City Hall case are likely facing life imprisonment. Although he has no doubt Russia will soon lift its moratorium on the death penalty — a topic lawmakers are actively discussing.

Reporting by Kristina Safonova