Relatives claim fabrication of criminal case against Chechen resident

Khamidulla Yapov, a resident of Chechnya, has served two sentences for his links with Chechen militants in 1999-2000; but after his terms were over, he was charged with new accusations.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in March 2012, the Supreme Court (SC) of Chechnya sentenced Yapov to 14 years of freedom deprivation within the case of the death of 84 Pskov paratroopers in the battles near Ulus-Kert in the Argun Gorge of Chechnya in 2000. In December 2024, it became known that Yapov was arrested again.

The 50-year-old Yapov was to be released from colony on December 13, 2024, but law enforcers detained him right in the colony by bringing new charges against him – involvement in an armed mutiny, banditry and an attempt on militaries’ lives, the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence* has reported.

In December 2010, law enforcers took Yapov and transported him to the Grozny SIZO (pre-trial prison) along with new charges – within the case of the attack on the Pskov paratroopers committed on February 29, 2000. He was charged with banditry, attempts on militaries’ lives and terrorist activities. The charges were based on dubious evidence, and the trial went on with serious violations, human rights defenders then noted. Yapov claimed that he was forced to confess under torture.

The new charges brought against Yapov concern a clash near the village of Chervlyonnaya in the Shelkovskoi District on October 4, 1999. At that time, Shamil Basaev’s and Amir Khattab’s groupings attacked servicemen of the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD), killing 15 and wounding 28 of them.

A “Memorial”* source has noted that criminal cases against former militants, including those who had voluntarily surrendered, are fabricated according to the same scheme; and Yapov is far from being the first to be charged again. “In this way, Russian law enforcement bodies … are efficiently depriving people of the chance to ever return to normal life at large,” the source has stated.

*As reported on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the reason for including on March 1, 2024, the unregistered "Memorial" Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD) into the roster of foreign agents was the spread of "inaccurate information aimed at creating a negative image of the Russian Federation, as well as the Russian Armed Forces."