Elena Patyaeva—a friend of Seda Suleymanova, who disappeared three years ago after being forcibly returned from St. Petersburg to Chechnya—was detained in Grozny. On August 23, Patyaeva stood by the monument to journalists who died for freedom of speech, holding a sign that read: "I demand an investigation into the murder of Seda Suleymanova." This was reported by the human rights project "Slovo Zashchite" (Word for the Defense).
In the Southern District Military Court in Rostov today, the verdict was to be announced on the editor of the Dagestan publication Chernovik, Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, and two other defendants in the case, Kemal Tambiev and Abubakar Rizvanov. They are accused of financing terrorism. Earlier, the prosecutor asked the defendants for 19 years in prison. The verdict will be announced on September 12.
“Our trial has become a household name and is perceived in society as an example of blatant lawlessness and falsification of a criminal case. This case was a fake from start to finish,” Gadzhiev, referred to by the Human Rights Center “Memorial,” said in his last word.
According to Gadzhiev, 40 volumes of waste paper in the form of a “criminal case” are not consistent logically and are full of contradictions and errors. “We will give full publicity to the work of the investigation and conduct our own investigation into the investigation conducted by investigator Nadir Televov. Whatever sentence the Rostov military court pronounces, we will not leave a single person in doubt about our innocence,” the journalist said.
In his opinion, the criminal case against him and other citizens is the “philosophy” of the country’s entire law enforcement system, which was perfectly described by Leo Tolstoy in the novel “Sunday” and which has not changed at all in 150 years.
During the proceedings, three linguistic examinations were made. None of them found anything illegal in the journalist's articles. The examinations did not find calls for extremism or terrorism, but did reveal propaganda of education, development and interest in modern technologies.