Chechen lawyer prevented from sending letters from pretrial detention center
Chechen lawyer Timur Idalov, convicted in a case of threatening a prosecutor, is being denied letters by employees of Moscow's Pretrial Detention Center No. 4. They cite the lack of envelopes with stamps. The petition in question concerns a petition to the Khimki City Court - in the letter, Idalov asks to review the protocol and audio recording of the court hearing.
Human rights activist Valentin Bogdan notes that pretrial detention center employees "shift the costs of personal letters from prisoners to relatives", but they are required to forward court appeals. Otherwise, according to Bogdan, the prisoner's right to defense is violated.
At the end of November, the Khimki City Court of the Moscow Region sentenced Idalov to 1 year and 11 months of forced labor in a case of threats to kill or cause harm to health against a prosecutor. In addition, he was banned from practicing law for three years. In court, the defendant listed the procedural violations committed in the case. He also noted that even the victim herself, prosecutor Tarasova, admitted that he did not threaten to do anything to her.
The case against Idalov was opened because in 2022, in the Nikulinsky Court of Moscow, he said to the prosecutor: "What are you, Commissioner Cattani? That's how they shot him." The lawyer himself notes that he said this phrase in the heat of the moment, and that it is in no way a threat. Later, he said that the charges against him were fabricated. The defense called the initiation of a criminal case revenge on the lawyer, who acted as a defense attorney in a number of high-profile criminal cases.
Timur Idalov is known for having appealed to the ECHR against the actions of the authorities during his arrest and imprisonment in a Moscow pretrial detention center and won the case. He also collaborated with the "For Human Rights" project and specialized in cases related to terrorism charges and high-profile murders.
