Oyub Titiev's advocates report threat to defence witnesses

In the case against Oyub Titiev, the testimonies of prosecution witnesses are contradictory and cannot be trusted, stated advocates of the rights defender.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", is under arrest since January 11 on charges of possessing marijuana. He insists that the drug had been planted on him by a law enforcer.

At the hearing held on September 28, the court questioned Rizvan Suleimanov, the deputy head for the Investigating Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate for Grozny, who got the information from Umar Baskhanov, a key prosecution witness, and handed it over to field investigators.

The defence cannot trust the testimonies given by the prosecution witnesses, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Marina Dubrovina, an advocate of Oyub Titiev.

"All the testimonies of witnesses are based on chance: the witness accidentally met Umar Baskhanov and then he accidentally met field investigators. We believe that so many accidents cannot happen and that is a chain of planned actions," said Marina Dubrovina.

The testimony of Rizvan Suleimanov, questioned on September 28, disagrees with the statement voiced by the key witness, noted Pyotr Zaikin, an advocate of Oyub Titiev. He has also added that the defence plans to give an assessment of some testimony voiced by Rizvan Suleimanov later, at the stage of the debate.

At his request, the Oyub Titiev's advocate do not mentioned the names of defence witnesses in advance in order to protect them from possible pressure. "My client asked me not to disclose for a while the information about the people whom we are going to question as witnesses to protect them from problems which may arise from possible impact of unscrupulous opponents," Pyotr Zaikin told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 29, 2018 at 02:39 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.