26 September 2016

Source: HRO.org

Human rights workers report that in the Chechen capital, the son of a local resident who had come from Germany to visit relatives, has been abducted, presumably by security forces. On 21st September 2016 Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) was contacted by Sanet Shakhidovna Abdurzukova, living in the Lenin district of Grozny in the Chechen Republic, about the abduction of her son, Anzor Ramazanovich Saraliev, born 1976.

According to Abdurzukova, Anzor Saraliev has been living in Germany since 1996, where he has a residence permit and is married with seven children in his family. Over the course of several years he has visited his mother once or twice a year, and there have been no complications of any kind. On 1st September 2016 Anzor Saraliev visited his mother as usual.

12th September 2016 was the first day of the Kurban-Bairam festival in the Chechen Republic and for this reason three days were declared as holidays. On that day at about 12 noon Sanet Abdurzukova and Anzor Saraliev were invited to the home of Tamus Kharaeva, Sanet’s sister, also living in the Lenin district of Grozny to celebrate the festival with her. They were with her for about an hour.

At approximately 13.00 Anzor came out into the yard, with his mother following within a few minutes. Coming down the stairs, Sanet Abdurzukova heard her son shouting in Chechen that he was being seized. In the yard the woman saw three men in plain clothes, armed with pistols, who were shoving Anzor into a light silver Lada-Priora car. Sanet ran up to them and asked what they wanted from her son and why they had seized him. One of the armed men said that he was “from drug control” and that they would release Anzor after questioning.

Trying to stop the abduction of her son, Sanet ran up to the driver’s door and wanted to open it, but the person who had spoken with her grabbed her roughly by the arm and forcibly pulled her away from the car. The woman was bruised just above the elbow because of this. Then the armed men sat in the car and took Anzor off in some unknown direction. Since then there has been no information at of the whereabouts of Anzor Saraliev.

Sanet Abdurzukova immediately contacted the Drugs Control Department but they informed her that they had carried out no such measures on that day, since they were on holiday. On the same day she wrote a statement to the prosecutor of the Lenin district of Grozny. The declaration was passed by the prosecutor to the Investigative Committee for Chechnya.

Four days later an investigator from the Investigative Committee for the Lenin district in Grozny called Abdurzukova and asked her about the circumstances of the abduction. As Sanet understands, up till now, there is no criminal case regarding the fact of the abduction of her son.

Sanet Abdurzukova thinks that her son has been abducted by representatives of the security services and she fears for his life and well-being.

Translated by Frances Robson