Innocent Chechen human rights activist sentenced to four years in prison

According to the Society for Threatened Peoples, the judgment of the Chechen Court in Urus-Martan against the respected Chechen political scientist Ruslan Kutayev is to be seen as "inhuman and purely politically motivated". On Monday, he was sentenced to four years in prison for alleged drug possession. "The aim is to silence the human rights activist for four years," criticized the STP's expert for questions concerning the CIS-states, Sarah Reinke. "There are unjust court proceedings in other parts of the Russian Federation too, but the Kutayev-case is a total farce. He is not only completely innocent, he was also tortured and injured in police custody before the trial," says the letter the STP sent to the German Foreign Ministry and to the special coordinator for Russia.

According to the Russian human rights organization "Committee against Torture", Kutayev was abducted from his brother's house after a conference on the collective deportation of the Chechens and Ingush by Stalin on February 23, 1944. He was beaten in police custody – first by the Deputy Interior Minister of Chechnya, Apti Alaudinow, then by the Chechen Prime Minister, Magomed Daudow. Then, he was taken to the cellar, where he was tortured with electric shocks and urged to sign several documents. He refused, so he was tortured again. By the time he was prepared to sign just about anything and to swear not to mention the suffering inflicted upon him, two of his ribs had been broken.

Kutayev's lawyer and some Russian human rights organizations are planning to appeal. The STP demanded the German federal administration to ensure that any proceedings at a higher court will be monitored by international observers in order to at least mitigate the sentence.

Kutayev has an impeccable reputation: during the war in Chechnya in 1997, he had advocated for Russian soldiers to be released from Prisons in Chechnya. In recent years, he worked together with the Russian representative of Human Rights Watch and the Helsinki Federation.

Sarah Reinke - head of the Berlin office and STP's expert on Eastern Europe - is available for further questions: Tel. 030 428 048 91 or berlin@gfbv.de.