Dagestan: in Court Witnesses of the Defence Examined in the case of Evloev

[Human Rights Center Memorial]

Dagestan: in Court Witnesses of the Defence Examined in the case of Evloev

On June 9, 2012 the second hearing in the case of Sergey Evloev, born 1991, who is accused according to Section 2 of Article 208 (organization or participation in illegal armed group), Section 2 of Article 209 (banditry), Article 317 (attempt on the life of an employee of a law enforcement agency), Section 3 of Article 222 (illegal acquisition, sale, possession, traffic or carrying of a weapon, its components, ammunition, explosives or an explosive device) and Section 2 of Article 167 (intension to destroy or damage property) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, took place in the Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan.

In the hearing witnesses for the defence were examined. First to be examined was the mother of the defendant, Leila Evloeva. According to her, Sergey was twice abducted by unknown men in masks in a white ‘Lada Priora’. In both cases Evloev was absent for almost 24 hours. Each time he returned beaten but did not tell her about the details. In addition, according to him he was followed. She knew nothing about the aggrieved district police officer Khalikov, who the defendant, according to investigation, attempted to kill. At the request of the defendant’s lawyer Z. Uvaysov Leila described the search, which on July 27, 2011 took place in their home. On that day she had gone out for a few hours, but Sergey had remained in the apartment. She returned at 7:00 p.m. and at the door there were 8 or 9 armed men in masks. Going into the apartment, she saw Sergey over whose head a t-shirt had been tied.

According to Leila, the men involved in the search kept going in and out of one of the rooms and could certainly have planted a weapon. The materials of the criminal case say, that at the time of the search a handgun and a stick of explosive were found. The handgun was found in a cupboard under a pillow. Leila claims that there was nothing under the pillow, which she had placed in the cupboard in the morning together with the rest of the sheets. According to her, the stick of explosive had also never been in their home.

The second defence witness, a member of the Dagestan regional public organization Pravozashchita Aysha Selimkhanova was asked by judge Zakir Ispravilov before interrogation not to talk about torture and not to make “political statements”. When the search was conducted in Evloev’s apartment, Selimkhanova and another member of the organization came but were not allowed in. Aysha declared that “Evloev was abducted by employees of law enforcement authorities because he adopted Islam.” The judge interrupted Selimkhanova and said that he would not allow such statements. After this he decided not to call the third witness, a member of organization “Pravozashchita”, who, in his opinion, would also make “political statements”.

Evloev’s lawyer Uvaysov refuted the testimony of “secret witnesses” given at the previous hearing, who claimed that they visited Evloev in a temporary detention centre. According to them, he willingly gave accounts of the attempt on Khalikov’s life, of his participation in an illegal armed unit and preparation in Balakhani village in the Untsukulskii district of the Republic of Dagestan. Uvaysov presented the response of the director of the temporary detention centre regarding all the visits received by Evloev in his detention cell. According to the document, the people speaking in court as “secret witnesses” never visited the defendant.

The following court hearing is fixed for June 20, 2012.

According to the documents of the criminal case, in 2010 S. Evloev made the acquaintance of members of the illegal armed unit Aligishiev and Sheykhov, who convinced him to join the ranks of the so called "Makhachkala dzhamaat." He carried out various tasks for them: he tailed members of the police force, recorded their routes, their movements and their number plates and passed the information to members of the criminal underground.  He also purchased an explosive device with which he attempted to assassinate police officer of the Soviet district of Makhachkala D. Khalikov, having placed the explosive device underneath his car. Meanwhile, following Evloev’s appeal to the Human Rights Centre “Memorial”, in 2011 he was abducted by members of law enforcement authorities several times. They took him out of town, tortured him, beat him, demanding that Sergey confess of a crime that he did not commit.  In the summer of 2011, officers conducted the search in Evloev’s apartment, after which they took him with them to Leninskiy ROVD of Makhachkal. According to Sergey, the handgun and stick of explosive found in his home were planted. After beating him in the department, they brought him to the public prosecutor’s office, where the accusatory documents were composed. In a temporary detention facility for 19 days he was tortured with electric shocks and beaten. Unable to withstand the torture, he signed the confession which the police insisted on.

June 15, 2012