Moscow police ‘torture and rape’ Daghestani man

Moscow police 'torture and rape' Daghestani man

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A Daghestani man has accused Moscow police of torturing him with a taser and raping him with a mop handle, with Daghestan’s Head Sergei Melikov intervening in the case.

Magomed Magomedov was detained on 20 January on charges of illegally manufacturing weapons. According to his lawyers, they were unable to locate Magomedov for three days following his arrest.

Once found, Magomedov reportedly told his lawyers that officers at the Razvilkovo police department had demanded he unlock his phone and give them ‘the necessary testimony’. When he refused, he said three officers used a stun gun on him, and then raped him with a mop handle while threatening to repeat these actions with his relatives. Magomedov told his lawyers that some of his torture was filmed by the police.

Footage of Magomedov’s injuries and testimony were later released by his lawyers, leading the Head of Daghestan, Sergei Melikov intervening in the case. Melikov asked the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and Russia’s Interior Minister, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, take the case under their personal control.

Magomedov filed a complaint with the Investigative Committee on Saturday, claiming to be able to identify all three officers who tortured him.

Melikov also noted that the authorities paying ‘excessive attention’ to North Caucasusians risked ‘inciting interethnic and inter-confessional discord and hatred’.

Despite presenting evidence of his torture, on Monday, Magomedov was remanded to pre-trial detention after receiving a new charge related to the illegal possession of weapons.

At his court hearing, the judge granted a motion to view footage of Magomedov’s injuries. She recorded a hand injury, marks from a stun gun, and that material fell out of the defendant’s anus — which the lawyers claimed was part of a rubber glove placed over a mop handle.

Prosecutors alleged in court that Magomedov was a relative of Islamic State supporters who were wanted and living in Syria.

‘No evidence to corroborate this information has been submitted to the court. Not a single piece’, one of Magomedov’s lawyers, Sergei Uzdensky, wrote on Telegram following the hearing.

‘No extremist materials were seized during the search of Magomed’s house, we have studied the protocols […] We expected something like this, but, of course, we expected the court to take a critical view of the report without facts and a number of other procedural violations.’

The Moscow Region Interior Ministry denied that Magomedov was mistreated, stating that ‘no actions against the sexual inviolability of the detainee were committed’. They claimed this had been confirmed by a doctor at the state medical centre.

OC Media reached out to one of Magomedov’s lawyers, Vladislav Zhivaev, for further comment, but he declined to comment further.

There have been widespread reports of the rape of detainees and prisoners in Russia, including natives of the North Caucasus. In February 2024, Takhirzhon Bakiev took his own life after an alleged rape by the authorities left him with permanent physical injuries.

https://oc-media.org/the-officer-swore-he-would-rape-his-sister-ehcr-awards-1-million-over-north-caucasus-tortures/