Trial Begins in Dagestan in the Case of Sergey Evloev
Human Rights Center Memorial
Trial Begins in Dagestan in the Case of Sergey Evloev
Hearings were held in the Supreme Court in Dagestan on April 27, 2012 and May 3, 2012 during which the investigation into the criminal case of a resident of the Republic of Dagestan, Sergey Sergeevich Evloev, born 1991, was initiated. He is charged under Part 2 Article 208 (organization of or participation in an illegal armed group), Part 2 Article 209 (banditry), Article 317 (attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer), Part 3 Article 222 (illegal purchase, transfer, sale, storage, transportation or carrying of weapons, parts, ammunition, explosives and explosive devices) and Part 2 Article 167 (intentional destruction of or damage to property). The case is being investigated in a trial by jury.
According to the public prosecutor, in 2010, Evloev was introduced to members of an illegal armed group, Aligishev and Sheikhov, who persuaded him to join the so-called Makhachkala Jamaat. He performed various tasks including following police officers, recording their movements and the number plates of their cars, and passing this information on to members of the criminal underground. Evloev also purchased an explosive device, with which he attempted to assassinate the Head of the Soviet district in Makhachkala, D.D.Khalikov, by placing it under his car. The prosecutor also stated in court that Evloev travelled to the Untsukul district, where he underwent training with illegal armed groups.
The victim Khalikov was absent at both hearings. The judge ruled that his attendance at the subsequent hearing on May 10 would be compulsory.
On May 3, one of the witnesses for the prosecution was questioned. Other witnesses called by the prosecution failed to appear.
Sergey Evloev appealed to the Human Rights Center Memorial in June 2011. He claimed that he had twice been abducted by law enforcement officers. The first abduction took place on January 11, 2011, near his home. Evloev was taken outside the city, where he was beaten, given electric shocks and threatened with being hung by the neck with an automatic gun on it, in his own home. The kidnappers ordered him to confess to a crime that, according to Evloev, he did not commit. He was later released.
On the second occasion, the man was abducted by employees of the Anti-Extremism Center from the courtyard of his house, on May 25, 2011. Law enforcement officers put Evloev in one of their cars and took him to a wood. They threatened to kill him, tortured, beat, and demanded him to name the people involved in a certain crime. According to Evloev, they then took him to the Anti-Extremism Center. He was told there that they had received an order to kill him. They tortured Evloev with electric shocks, beat him with bottles of water, and throttled him. Unable to withstand the torture, Evloev slandered some security officers at a department agency. The kidnappers said that if he was lying to them, then they would definitely kill him. He was released the following day.
Evloev submitted applications to human rights organizations and the prosecutor's office. In June 2011, he was called to the prosecutor's office in the Lenin district of Makhachkala. The investigator Abdula Omarov asked Evloev to take the application back, suggesting that it had been written under pressure from human rights activists. Evloev refused and left.
On July 27, 2011, the apartment where Evloev lived with his mother was searched. According to Sergey, law enforcement officers planted a gun there which they then 'discovered' in the course of their search, and they then took him to the Lenin district police department in Makhachkala. There they beat Evloev, who was then transferred to the prosecutor's office in the city of Kaspiisk. According to Evloev, incriminatory documents were drawn up there. From the prosecutor's office he was taken to a temporary detention center in Makhachkala, and after a week they admitted a lawyer to see him. Nineteen days after his transfer to the detention center, Evloev was beaten and given electric shocks. He was unable to withstand the torture and signed a confession of guilt, on which the police officers were insisting.
On January 16, 2012, a lawyer from the bar Kavkaz, Marat Sagitov, with whom Evloev's relatives had entered into an agreement for his protection, questioned Sergey in prison in Makhachkala. During questioning, his defender recorded a detailed description of the torture to which Evloev was subjected whilst in detention. Employees at the Anti-Extremism Center frequently illegally removed Evloev from prison and tortured and beat him. The lawyer Sagitov lodged appeals on that.
On February 16, 2012, the decision came to refuse Evloev the possibility of bringing a criminal case against employees of the Anti-Extremism Center, due to a lack of criminal actions in their activities.
The HRC Memorial will follow the development of events surrounding the trial of Evloev.
May 4, 2012