A member of the Human Rights Council, Eva Merkacheva, asked the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Arkady Gostev to transfer Nikita Zhuravel, a person involved in the case of burning the Koran, from Chechnya “to an institution of the Federal Penitentiary Service of another region”. She wrote about this in her telegram channel.
“For security reasons, I ask you to urgently transfer Nikita Zhuravel to an institution of the Federal Penitentiary Service of another region. I also ask you to check on what basis, during the period of detention, persons who are not related to the investigation and who, by law, do not enjoy the right to communicate with those under investigation, got access to it,” the human rights activist wrote.
Student Nikita Zhuravel is accused of insulting the feelings of believers (Part 2 of Article 148 of the Criminal Code). The reason for the criminal case was a video with burning pages of the Koran against the backdrop of a mosque in Volgograd. The author of the video separately focuses on the cover of the book and then on the mosque — the investigation believes that it was shot by Zhuravel.
The detention of a 19-year-old boy became known on May 20. Later, the security forces published a video in which Zhuravel says that he burned the Koran on the instructions of “people from Ukraine” for 10,000 rubles. On May 21, the Investigative Committee issued a press release, which noted that the video with the burning of the Koran was published “in public access on an Internet portal controlled by TSIPSO APU«.
According to the decision of the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, the investigation of the case was transferred from the department for the Volgograd region to the department for Chechnya. On May 22, a court in Volgograd sent Zhuravel to a pre-trial detention center, and on May 27, the young man was taken to a detention center in Grozny.
In mid-August, Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova reported that she had received a complaint from Nikita Zhuravel. According to the Volgograd citizen, he was beaten by the son of Ramzan Kadyrov, Adam, in the pre-trial detention center. Companions of the head of Chechnya — Magomed Dudov, Adam Delimkhanov and Akhmed Dudayev — supported the act of his son.
Ombudsman of Chechnya Mansur Soltaev and Minister of Information of the Republic Akhmed Dudayev also reported that the beating took place immediately after Zhuravel's personal meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov. Adam came to her with his father.