News

On December 10, the Nasimi District Court of Baku considered the petition asking to transfer the rights defender Rasul Jafarov from custody to home arrest. The court rejected the petition; and his defence intends to appeal against the decision.

Today, the Basmanny District Court in Moscow has extended, until April 19, 2015, the home arrest of Levon Airapetyan, a businessmen and a member of the Armenian Diaspora in Russia, who is under investigation in the case of Bashneft company.

The suspected militant Ruslan Darsamov, killed on December 9, was involved in organizing a double terror act near the Dagestani service of court marshals and in Dakhadaev Street in Makhachkala, as well as in the murders of a judge of the republic's Supreme Court and the owner of a fuelling station, investigators assert.

Today in the morning, in the village of Kotar-Yurt, located in the foothill Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya, a house belonging to the family of Aslan Byutukaev, who is considered to be the head of the battalion of suicide bombers named "Riyad-us Saliheen", was burned down, local residents told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Umar Kadyrov, a relative of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, who was killed in the militants' attack on Grozny on December 4, was a son of the deputy head of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia for the republic, FMS source said today.

Late at night on December 9, in Makhachkala, policemen shot dead a suspected militant, who was identified as Ruslan Darsamov, the leader of the Makhachkala armed grouping, who was involved in killings of law enforcers and civilians, said the press centre of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC) of the Russian Federation.

Chechen law enforcers have conducted passport checks in the Staropromyslovskiy District of Grozny. The republic has stepped up security measures after the militants' attack on Grozny on December 4 and on the eve of the New Year holidays, the spokesman of the Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for Chechnya explained.

At the trial of Mardiros Demerchyan, a builder of Olympic facilities in Sochi, who is accused of a false denunciation of policemen, his defence stated a violation of a number of legal acts of the Russian Federation in the course of the investigation and offered the court to acquit the builder.

A resident of Stavropol Jamal Makhmudov, born in 1984, went missing on December 8, after policemen searched his house, his wife Madina told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Today, the Karabudakhkent District Court of Dagestan has ruled to arrest Kamil Guliev, whose disappearance was reported by his wife, for one month. His defence intends to appeal against the ruling.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported referring to locals that on December 7 in the village of Yandi, Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya, power agents burnt down houses of three families of the relatives of members of the armed underground killed on December 4 in Grozny.

Today, an action of the members of the Yazidi community was held in front of the Armenian Parliament, who demanded from the MPs to recognize the attacks on Yazidis in Iraq as an act of genocide. About ten members of the Yazidi community of Armenia handed over a letter with their demands to the parliamentary factions.

Today, the Zamoskvoretskiy Court of Moscow has rejected the complaint, lodged by the "Don Women" Union against putting the organization into the register of the so-called "foreign agents" by the Russia's Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has accepted the complaint of the arrested Azerbaijani rights defender Rasul Jafarov against his freedom restriction measure, said his legal representative Gyunay Ismayilova.

A group of rights defenders in Azerbaijan have expressed their readiness to take Khadija Ismayilova, the arrested employee of the local service of Radio Liberty on bail.

A subbotnik was held in the Chechen capital, when local residents helped to clear up the House of Press and School No. 20, damaged during the recent counterterrorist operation (CTO) conducted in Grozny. Employees of state institutions were involved in the works, said a source from the city administration.

The statements of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov about relatives' responsibility for militants' actions are contrary to the law, said Igor Kalyapin, the head of the Committee Against Torture, in his appeals to the bosses of the Russia's General Prosecutor's Office and the Investigating Committee.

Kamil Guliev, a resident of Makhachkala, whose kidnapping was reported by his wife, is in the temporary detention facility (known as IVS) of the Karabudakhkent ROVD (District Interior Division). Guliev's relatives believe that the case against him was fabricated.

Jundallah Shishani, a field commander of Syrian militants and a close ally of Omar Shishani, the commander of the northern sector of the "Islamic State" (IS), was killed in Syria during clashes in the town of Kobane. Earlier, different sources at least five times reported about the murder of Omar Shishani himself.

On December 8, in the city of Akhalkalaki, located in Southern Georgia, a protest action against illegal actions of the police was held in front of the municipality council. The protesters said that law enforcers had violated the law by beating up several young men.