Chechen sportsman Amriyev released from detention in Bryansk

Chechen sportsman Murad Amriyev has been released by police in the Russian city of Bryansk, on the Russian–Ukrainian border, after spending two days in a temporary detention centre. Chechen security forces had been guarding the building in order to capture Amriyev if he left, and to transport him to Chechnya. However, Amriyev managed to evade them, leaving the building in secret.

The official reason for his detention by border guards in Bryansk, as he returned from Europe to Russia, was a mistake in the date of birth on his passport. There was speculation that the real reason for was that Amriyev is wanted by Chechen authorities. A criminal case against him there was dropped some time ago, however Chechen police once again issued a warrant for his arrest four months ago.

After his arrest, Russian rights group the Committee to Prevent Torture took on Amriyev’s case, urgently appealing to the European Court of Human Rights and Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner to prevent his transfer to Chechnya. Amriyev previously appealed for help from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture in 2013, after what he described as his illegal detention and torture by Chechen police.

According to the organisation, Amriyev faced death or disappearance in Chechnya, as one high-ranking Chechen police officer has publicly declared a blood feud against the Amriyev family.

The ombudsman of Bryansk Oblast, Vyacheslav Tulupov, who investigated the organisation’s allegations, claims that the Bryansk police didn’t violate the law when they detained Amriyev and tried to extradite him to their Chechen counterparts.

‘Having learnt on the internet about the detention of Amriyev, we began to investigate for a violation of human rights. We did not establish any violations. All the speculations that are being made today, including by the media, are superfluous’, Tulupov told Russian news agency TASS on 6 June.

Murad Amriyev is a famous Chechen sportsman and MMA fighter. His current whereabouts are unknown.