06 September 2019, 10:27
Experts treat oath of Dagestani residents to IS as manipulations
An examination of the video depicting the oath given by four residents of Buynaksk to the leader of the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court), has shown that they were affected by an off-screen manipulator, the defendants' advocate has stated. Experts from Saint Petersburg found violations in the work of their Dagestan colleagues, who failed to find signs of coercion in the video, the defence claims.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Samat Tatarkhanov, Daniyal Zagirov, Ramazan Zakaryaev and Ali Ramazanov were accused of arms trafficking and organization of a terrorist community.
On May 23, 2019, human rights defenders stated that all the four defendants had refused from their earlier testimonies, citing self-incrimination under torture. The young people said that after detention they were tortured with electric shocks, taken to the forest and forced to read the oath to the IS leader to the video camera at gunpoint.
The "Saint Petersburg Institute of Independent Expertise and Evaluation" has studied the video of the oath and confirmed that there were signs of staging, and that the video was filmed by a leader-manipulator. Besides, according to experts, the defendants read out a text previously prepared by someone," said the advocate.
According to the prosecution, in January 2017, Zakaryaev, Tatarkhanov and Ramazanov created an IS unit, and in June 2018, Zagirov joined them. In August 2018, the members of the unit armed themselves, and in October swore allegiance to the IS, and shortly thereafter they were detained, investigators assert.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 5, 2019 at 11:07 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Patimat Makhmudova
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