![]() Oleg Orlov, head of the 'Hot Spots' programme at Memorial Human Rights Centre, told Caucasian Knot: "I can’t assert that this practice was applied in this case... But my experience suggests that there are grounds to believe that the man was taken away, or kidnapped, but, in fact, killed. Recently, this trick is commonly used in Dagestan; such cases are presented in the report on counterterror of the HRC ‘Memorial’." Svetlana Gannushkina, a board member at Memorial Human Rights Centre and chair of the Civic Assistance Committee, said that the case of Magomed Suleimanov reminded her of that of Alikhan Markuev, who "was kidnapped by law enforcement agents in 2009 in Chechnya, subsequently killed and presented as a terrorist: "We knew that Markuev would be killed beforehand – a prison guard told us about it. I wrote a letter to the then President Dmitry Medvedev with an indication of the village where Markuev was kept... However, responses of various agencies stated that the information was not confirmed. But we were right: Markuev was killed, and his body was planted." Caucasian Knot notes that, according to Svetlana Gannushkina, this practice is used by law enforcement officers "to improve their detection rate and earn new epaulettes." Photo: Caucasian Knot Source: 'Rights defenders doubt official version of Magomed Suleimanov’s death,' Caucasian Knot, 21 June 2016 |
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