News

The commission has refused to apply the conditional early relief (CER) to Vano Merabishvili, the former Georgian Interior Minister, who had been convicted in the case of beating an MP. The defence has treated the denial as politically motivated.

A court in Grozny has refused to satisfy a complaint against a refusal to open a case on the application of Ibragim Yangulbaev about his torture by law enforcers, the Committee against Torture (CaT) has reported today. The defence intends to appeal against the ruling.

A court in Kabardino-Balkaria has ruled to imprison Ruslan Aushev, suspected of involvement in clashes with law enforcers at a rally in Magas. While justifying the arrest, investigators presented uncertified copies of documents, but the court ignored this, the advocates Akhmed Kaloev and Magomed Bekov affirm.

Three policemen suspected of beating a man in Orekhovo-Zuevo, who later died in hospital from the injuries he got, were arrested. A source from the law enforcement bodies reported that the deceased man was a father of MMA world champion Magomed Yunusilau.

The Chief Directorate for the North-Caucasian Federal District (NFCD) of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) found rational an appeal filed by the NGO "Mothers of Beslan" with a request to preserve the "Chermen" checkpoint at the border with Chechnya, a member of the NGO reports today. The "Mothers of Beslan" opposed the Ramzan Kadyrov's call to remove all checkpoints between the regions of Northern Caucasus.

Four Ingush students kept in a Cairo prison were transferred to a medical unit because of deterioration of their health state after a hunger strike, their relatives reported. After a meeting with family members of the arrested students, human rights defenders promised to contact the Russia's Ombudsperson.

Takhir Begeldiev and Nariman Otepov, two residents of the Stavropol Territory, were involved in an attack on Dagestan led by Shamil Basaev and Emir Khattab in 1999, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) reports today.

In Stepanakert, participants of a torchlight procession urged the international community to give the legal assessment of the Armenian Genocide and force the guilty party to pay compensation to the Armenian people, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The US Navy USS Ross DDG-71 destroyer has arrived in Batumi. The US ship will take part in joint exercises with two Georgian patrol boats, and then it will leave the territorial waters of Georgia on April 25.

Umar Khadziev and Ruslan Tsurov, sentenced in cases on terror acts committed in North Ossetia, deny the prosecutor's version in the Aslan Yandiev's case. Both witnesses state that they do not know Aslan Yandiev and that they confessed to the crimes under torture.

Armenia has held torchlight marches in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. In the capital of the country, the event was held under the motto "Full and fair compensation".

One of the five persons detained in Chechnya and Dagestan on suspicion of preparing terror acts, has told law enforcers their plan to attack policemen with the help of a quadcopter.

More than 2300 residents of Stepanakert have participated in the traditional torchlight march in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Apart from torches and candles, the marchers carried flags of the countries, which have recognized the Armenian Genocide.

The second hippodrome in Chechnya has been opened in Shali; the third one is being built in Grozny; it will be the largest in Northern Caucasus. Horse races in Chechnya are held very rarely, local residents said. To make a hippodrome profitable, it must have hundreds of races per year and take toto bets, said the branch workers interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".

A sculpture to a citizen who has brought garbage to a bin will be installed in Kaspiysk in order to draw attention to the problem of spontaneous dumps in the city. The initiative of one of the construction companies has caused a hot debate in social networks about the sources of garbage in the streets of Kaspiysk and other cities of Dagestan.

Rashid Aushev has become today, together with the activists detained earlier, Khasan Katsiev and Akhmed Nalgiev, the third suspect in the case of clashes with law enforcers at a rally in Magas, the advocates, Akhmed Kaloev and Magomed Bekov, have informed.

Five members of the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia by the court, were preparing attacks on law enforcers in the cities of Kaspiysk and Grozny, the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB) has informed.

Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, has entered a remote dispute with the blogger, Tumso Abdurakhmanov, and supported Ramzan Kadyrov's opinion.

The verdict pronounced by the Supreme Court (SC) of Russia in favour of Tariq Topçu, deprived of his residence permit, will receive a positive response among members of the Circassian Diaspora, activists believe.

The decision made by the Arbitration Court of Adygea on transferring the building of the first Maikop mosque from the property of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the Russian Federation to the property of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims (SAM) of Adygea and the Krasnodar Territory is a historically important event, believes Asfar Myss, the head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims for the Takhtamukai District.