Kabardino-Balkaria: defendants in the case of attack on Nalchik complain of tortures

The Kabardino-Balkarian Human Rights Centre has received five applications from the relatives of the persons accused of attacking the power agencies of Kabardino-Balkaria on October 13, 2005, asking to help in defending their rights.

The applications are accompanied by the detainees' letters, in which they write about tortures and beatings, which have been applied to them right after detention two years ago. The prisoners insist that all their evidences were taken from them under pressure, tortures, threats of rape and slow torturous murder.

We remind you that in connection with the events of October 13, 2005, in Nalchik charges were presented to 59 persons. The trial, where the case files make 1300 volumes, was started on October 11.

On November 25, another session of preliminary hearing will take place. Soon after the arrests made in October 2005, mass media published photos of the detainees with traces of tortures, some of them were placed in the Internet.

Earlier, only one of the detainees on the events of October 13, 2005, spoke about tortures and beatings applied to him. It was Rasul Kudaev, a resident of Khasanya village of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) and a former prisoner of the American Guantanamo prison. In his interviews before the arrest he also spoke about cruel treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.