European Court convicts Russian forces of torture in Chechnya

[struggle4progress]

Moscow calls judges 'political' after rulings against Russia in human rights cases.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that two brothers in Chechnya were tortured by Russian military authorities. The Washington Post reports the court also found that authorities in the conflict-ravaged southern republic failed to investigate the brothers' allegations of abuse. The decision is believed to be the first issued by the court covering allegations of torture in Chechnya. The court is based in Strasbourg, France.

"The applicants were indisputably kept in a permanent state of physical pain and anxiety owing to their uncertainty about their fate and to the level of violence to which they were subjected throughout the period of their detention," according to a panel of seven judges, who reached a unanimous decision.

"The Court considers that such treatment was intentionally inflicted on the applicants by agents of the State acting in the course of their duties," the judgment stated, "with the aim of extracting from them a confession or information about the offences of which they were suspected."

The two men were released in 2000, six months after they were initially arrested. The Moscow Times reports that the brothers, Adam and Arbi Chitayev, said they were "beaten with water bottles and rubber truncheons, nearly strangled and attacked by dogs" during their time in prison. They believe they were only saved because of an article by Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who was shot dead in October, and help from Memorial, a human rights group. The case against them was dropped on their release ...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0119/p99s01-duts.html