On September 7, the Fortanga website reported on the torture of suspects in a terrorism financing case. The father of one of the defendants, Magomed Derbichev, shared details about how the investigation is being conducted.

His son, 41-year-old Khavazh Derbichev, and another defendant in the case, Timerlan Kartoyev, were detained on April 19. The third suspect, Ilyas Kartoyev, is in Turkey. According to investigators, between 2020 and 2022, Derbichev registered four bank cards in his name and transferred them to Ilyas Kartoyev for a monthly fee of 5,000 rubles. According to investigators, Kartoyev collected money on these cards under the guise of charity, but in fact transferred the funds he received to the terrorist organization ISIS.

According to the operatives, the collection was carried out on the social network Instagram on a page belonging to the Dagestani preacher Israil Akhmednabiyev, known as Abu-Umar Sasitlinsky. The funds were collected throughout the Caucasus for the construction of wells in Africa, the construction of mosques, and assistance to seriously ill people and refugees. Almost 30 million rubles were collected in this way. 13.4 million of them were used to finance the terrorist group Islamic State. Recall that similar charges were previously brought against Dagestani journalist Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, who allegedly helped Sasitlinsky, publishing an interview with him in the newspaper Chernovik. Khavazh Derbichev is also suspected of aiding terrorist activity (Article 33-205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). His father Magomed Derbichev is sure that the criminal case is fabricated. "In reality, there is lawlessness, a setup just to put him in jail. "Nothing else," he told reporters.

According to him, his son was tortured after his arrest. "When they were sitting in Nazran, they put a bag over his head and forced him to write a confession, they mocked him... I'm telling you that they did, they really did mock him. This Kartoyev, who is sitting with him, they also mocked him."

Magomed Derbichev said that his son graduated from law school, but, unable to find a job in his specialty, he did finishing work. He is married, has three children, and has never had any problems with the law. He really did give his bank cards, as well as his wife's cards, to Kartoyev, whom he has known since childhood, but not for money, but to help in a good cause.

Derbichev's lawyer Mustafa Garakoyev is also sure that his client did not know about Kartoyev's criminal intentions. According to the defense attorney, "there is no direct evidence of his intentional crime in the criminal case" and, "the most interesting thing is that the investigator and prosecutor know about it."

According to experts, the security forces in the North Caucasus have put the fabrication of such "terrorist" cases on stream. It is safe, but it provides them with bonuses and promotions. By initiating cases for money transfers, law enforcement officers have ultimately demonstrated miscalculations in real counter-terrorism work, -- notes Alexander Cherkasov, a member of the Council of the Memorial Center for the Protection of Human Rights.

"Against the backdrop of a decrease in real resistance, the security forces, in order to send reports to the center that allow them to justify their considerable staff in the North Caucasus and the budgets allocated to them, have switched to quite comfortable and safe "terrorist" cases, initiating them only for money transfers to "suspicious" recipients. In exactly the same way, without leaving their offices, the police have begun to initiate cases against cells of Islamist organizations that have not been active for several decades. “The incidents that followed one after another in Ingushetia serve as a demonstration of the miscalculations of real counter-terrorism work,” the human rights activist said, commenting on a series of attacks on security forces in Ingushetia this spring.

Khavazh Derbichev is currently in a pretrial detention center in Rostov-on-Don. The court extended his pretrial detention until November 13. The lawyer did not appeal this decision.

“There is no point in appealing, since no one has been released under this article,” he believes.

Meanwhile, Abu-Umar Sasitlinsky was removed from the international wanted list in April. The Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files concluded that his case is dominated by political or religious goals. In addition, the commission took into account the fact that there are prosecution witnesses in the case who testified under torture, the Chechen human rights organization from Europe “Vaifond” reported with reference to Interpol.