07 November 2023, 16:21
Advocate Vadaev treats his case as revenge of Chechen law enforcers
A court closed a criminal case on forgery of documents instituted against Abubakar Vadaev, a defence lawyer from Chechnya, due to the lack of evidence of a crime. The case was initiated by Chechen law enforcers after he made public the information about the torture of a person, Abubakar Vadaev states.
According to the investigators’ version, defence lawyer Abubakar Vadaev forged a lawyer’s order, indicating in it that he was a member of the Chechen Bar Association, although at that time he was excluded from it.
In April, the Koptevsky Court of Moscow sentenced Abubakar Vadaev to six months of restricted freedom. The defence lawyer stated that the criminal prosecution was the result of revenge by the Chechen law enforcers for his human rights activities, the “Sota”* publication reported.
According to Abubakar Vadaev’s report, in 2019, he made public the information about the torture of his client. After that, he was summoned to the Chechen Minister of Internal Affairs. The defence lawyer was requested to retract his statements, and law enforcers began to threaten his family.
Abubakar Vadaev filed an application to a bar association in another region, but then withdrew it. The defence lawyer was unable to obtain written confirmation of the withdrawal of his application, as the bar association had moved to another building. Then, for a year and a half, Abubakar Vadaev made contributions to the Chechen Bar Association and received lawyer’s order forms, as a lawyer takes part in cases on the basis of those documents. Abubakar Vadaev believed that his conflict with the law enforcers from Chechnya had been resolved and that he was a member of the republic’s bar association.
Then the public prosecutor stated that Abubakar Vadaev was no longer in the register of lawyers in Chechnya. The defence lawyer learned that he was expelled from the bar association in early 2020 and was not notified about that. Further, a case was instituted against Abubakar Vadaev for forgery of a document.
The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in 2020, defence lawyer Sergey Marakov was arrested in Grozny and charged with drug trafficking. The defence claimed that the drugs were planted to him by law enforcers. Sergey Marakov connected the persecution with his professional activities. In December 2021, he was released and refused to work in Chechnya or even visit the republic.
*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 6, 2023 at 11:19 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: Caucasian Knot
