At the end of March, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced natives of Dagestan, Abas Saidov and Zamur Tagirov, to 19 years in prison. They were found guilty under articles on 'creating a terrorist community', recruitment, organizing an illegal armed formation, and illegal arms trafficking. 'Caucasian Knot'* spoke with the defense of the accused, and the lawyer said that the witnesses, on whose testimonies the accusation was based, stated that they gave them under pressure.
Lawyer Abdulla Gaziev, representing the interests of Zamur Tagirov, reported that his client claimed torture during the investigation and trial, and the accused completely denied guilt during the proceedings. At the same time, according to the lawyer, during the preliminary investigation, Tagirov was forced to partially admit guilt because the appointed lawyers misled him. In court, he renounced them.
The prosecution's version was confirmed by the testimonies of two girls, who later admitted that they gave them under pressure. 'They claimed that they were previously acquainted with them, that during conversations they said they had created some organization. The criminal case against them
Currently, the girls are retracting their testimonies and asking law enforcement agencies to investigate the situation and hold the security forces accountable, Gaziev said, providing copies of the submitted statements. Isabella Israpilova reported that the security forces intimidated her along with her sister Asiyat Batyrova with physical violence.
'The whole conversation boiled down to us giving testimonies that Tagirov and Saidov created a terrorist community in Dagestan, which I first heard about from the operative <...>. In return, as was said, neither we nor our relatives would suffer physically,' Israpilova wrote.
Another witness in the case of Saidov and Tagirov, a native of Ingushetia Adam Maloroev, stated that he, along with another witness in the case, was tortured to obtain the necessary testimonies. 'We were held for several days under torture. A bag was put over my head, I couldn't see anything. My hands were tied behind my back, my legs were taped to the chair legs. They beat us: on the face, on the head, on the groin - especially hard. They beat me so that blood came out of my mouth. They forced me to incriminate myself: to say that I was interested in the war in Syria or Chechnya, that I was going to go on jihad, that I knew these guys. They connected electricity to me - attached wires to my ears, shocked me below the waist and on the body. They kept the current on until I 'confessed' to what they needed,' he said in a video published on his Telegram channel by Chechen oppositionist Tumso Abdurakhmanov*.
Maloroev reported that he left Russia to avoid giving testimonies against Tagirov and Saidov.
* Recognized in Russia as 'foreign agents'.