Court in the case of Abdulmumin Hajiyev again refused to exclude confessions extracted under torture
The Southern Military Court in Rostov-on-Don will not exclude from the case file the confession of the accused to the head of the charity fund «Ansar» Abubakar Rizvanov, which he gave under torture. Another person, Kemal Tambiyev, had previously petitioned to have his testimony removed from the list of evidence because they had been evicted during the torture. He was also refused.
Rizvanov and Tambiyev, together with Dagestan journalist Abdulmumin Hajiyev, are accused of participating in the activities and financing of a terrorist organization. Earlier experts confirmed the absence in Hajiyev’s articles of propaganda of religious intolerance, supremacy of Sharia and calls to terrorism. The examination also found that there was no indication in the materials submitted by the prosecutor that there was an incentive to transfer funds to a charitable fund and overthrow the authorities.
The accusation of Abdulmumin Hajiyev was based on two components: the transfer of 16,000 rubles to ISIS (prohibited in the Russian Federation) and the propaganda of terrorism in twenty articles. Neither thesis was confirmed in court. Moreover, none of the prosecution witnesses was able to disclose incriminating information about the journalist.
