The Sheikh-Mansurovsky District Court of Grozny dismissed the criminal case against two former National Guard employees Bekhan Abdurashidov and Aslan Dukaev, accused of illegally detaining a resident of Khasavyurt. Team Against Torture reports this.
The case was dropped due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. The decision has not yet entered into legal force; lawyers have filed an appeal.
In December 2020, the Gudermes City Court of Chechnya assigned Abdurashidova and Dukayeva three and a half years of probation, finding them guilty of abuse of power. In April of the following year, the sentence was overturned. In 2023, the same court sentenced the ex-National Guardsmen to two years of probation; this decision was later also overturned.
In 2017, Alexey Kardashov, who managed a local pharmacy, disappeared in Khasavyurt, Dagestan. A taxi driver from Grozny, Said-Magomed Omarov, who called him that day, said that he was going to go to Kardashov’s pharmacy for Lyricatogether with six Chechen security officials. Kardashov was taken from Khasavyurt to the Gudermes department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after which he disappeared.
Terek, «Lyrica», pharmacist. How the Dagestan Investigative Committee investigated, and the Chechen Investigative Committee ruined the case of the abduction by security forces of a resident of Khasavyurt, whose body was never found
The Investigative Committee of Dagestan opened a criminal case about kidnapping, four security officers were suspects, whose identities the investigation was able to establish. In February 2019, the case was transferred to Chechnya — and then taxi driver Omarov, who testified against the security forces, came to the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Gudermes district and said that he had killed a pharmacist, after which he threw the body from a bridge into the Terek River. As a result, he was sentenced to eight years in a maximum security colony. Kardashov's body has not yet been found.
Abdurashidov and Dukaev were arrested in March 2019 under articles of kidnapping and abuse of power with the use of violence. Six months later, the charge was softened — only the article about exceeding powers. The security forces were charged with it because they detained Kardashov not on their territory.
Team Against Torture lawyers previously noted that there is no evidence of Omarov’s guilt in the case, other than his confession. Kardashov’s mother Tsilya Yakubova also does not believe in the taxi driver’s version.