"Committee against Torture" sums up investigation into attack on rights defenders and journalists in Ingushetia

Despite 30 months of investigation into the attack on journalists and rights defenders in Ingushetia on the border with Chechnya, there are no defendants in the case, and investigators do not respond to requests from victims to examine the case materials, the NGO "Committee against Torture" reports today.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 9, 2016, in Ingushetia, near the administrative border with Chechnya, a group of unidentified persons beat eight rights defenders and journalists, as well as a driver who drove a minivan of the Joint Mobile Group (JMG) of the "Committee for Prevention of Torture", who were sent to Grozny. As a result, four persons were hospitalized.

Today, another period of preliminary investigation into the criminal case on an attack on rights defenders has expired. For thirty months, the investigators were unable to find the criminals, and the victims didn't get acquainted with the results of the investigation, the "Committee against Torture" reports in its press release sent to the "Caucasian Knot".

"For more than a year, we have not been informed about the progress of the investigation. We do not know what the investigators have been doing all those thirty months," said Ekaterina Vanslova, one of the victims of the attack, as quoted in the report prepared by the "Committee against Torture".

She has also noted that there are still no suspects and defendants in the case. "In this regard, the logical and, unfortunately, almost the only way out for us will be to file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)," the NGO's lawyer noted.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 25, 2018 at 02:41 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.