World champion in martial arts Murad Amriev was detained on the border between Ukraine and Russia. The Chechen police put him on the federal wanted list, accusing him of falsifying his passport. Murad Amriev's parents fear that a blood feud from a high-ranking official awaits the fighter in the republic.
A native of Chechnya, 32-year-old Murad Amriev has spent the last few years abroad. He practices mixed martial arts and even became the MMA world champion according to the World Mixed Martial Arts Federation, competing for Ukraine. Last weekend he was returning to Russia to renew his visa to Europe, but after crossing the border, border guards asked him to get off the train. “They dropped him off, the train left, and they told him that you are wanted. After that he was taken to Bryansk. Chechen police officers went there to take him to Chechnya,” the fighter’s mother, Roza Amrieva, who lives in Grozny, told Kommersant. She says that in the republic he may face blood feud from a high-ranking official. “We are very worried about what awaits him here,” she says. According to her, Mr. Amriev is now in a temporary detention center in Bryansk.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Bryansk region told Kommersant that they are aware of the detention of Mr. Amriev, but do not comment on this topic, since the detention took place in transport. The Ministry of Internal Affairs for Transport in the Central Federal District confirmed to Kommersant that the fighter was indeed detained at the Russian border, but indicated that they had “nothing to do with it,” since the athlete was thrown off the train by border guards. The press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Chechnya stated that only the head of the press service can speak about the Murad Amriev case, but he has not yet answered Kommersant’s call. “We are clarifying the circumstances, so far there is nothing to say,” the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs told Kommersant, explaining that there is no blood feud in Russian legislation.
The human rights organization Committee for the Prevention of Torture has been leading the case of Murad Amriev since 2013. Then the fighter’s parents contacted the committee, talking about blood feud. That year, Mr. Amriev was detained in Grozny. “According to Murad, one of the kidnappers was a high-ranking Chechen policeman who suspected his older brother of attempting to kill himself. But it was impossible to get to my brother - he went to live in Germany,” says the head of the committee, Igor Kalyapin. “We have testimony from the parents. According to them, this official gathered all of Murad’s relatives in the apartment and said that if the elder brother did not return, then responsibility for the assassination attempt would pass to Murad.” “In 2013, he was taken absolutely illegally, kidnapped, then he was brought home, he was all beaten,” recalls Roza Amrieva: according to her, her son was also tortured electric shock. Mr. Kalyapin mentions the name of a high-ranking police officer, but the soldier’s parents prefer not to mention it, although they say: “Everyone knows this. He is not an ordinary person." According to the database of the Leninsky District Court of Grozny, in 2014, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic filed a claim for the protection of honor and dignity against Murad Amriev and the “Committee for the Prevention of Torture”, but both parties failed to appear in court for six months, and therefore the claim was left without consideration. However, soon another similar claim was received from the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs. The meetings were postponed again for six months, including due to the parties’ failure to appear, and then the court partially upheld the claim, demanding that the committee’s management “refute the information contained on the website,” without specifying which information exactly.
Officially, Murad Amriev was put on the wanted list under Part 3 of Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of a knowingly false document). According to his mother, the first time this happened was in 2013, then “under an amnesty” he was taken off the wanted list, but in February 2017 he was put on the wanted list again. Roza Amrieva says that during the war, all documents were lost, and in the new documents an error was made in the year of birth. “Murad and his sister are twins, born in 1985. In 2002, there were military operations, a period when it was impossible to stick his head out, but I wanted to send him to study in Moscow, to school, and so we risked going to the Shalinsky district. There the court made a decision by issuing a birth certificate. And there was a year difference - they indicated the year of birth in 1986,” says Roza Amrieva. The registry office told her that the war would pass, and we would somehow fix everything. “We agreed with this. Murad received a school certificate, a diploma at the institute, got a passport, and that’s all since 1986. And now they tell him that this is a forgery of documents,” says the mother.
“On the federal wanted list under Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation can be filed,” says Mr. Kalyapin. He emphasizes that 48 hours from the moment of detention expire on Tuesday morning, and by this time police officers must release Murad Amriev. “But somehow we doubt it. The officer on duty says that they have no reason not to hand Murad over to the police from Chechnya,” the human rights activist notes. He fears that the security forces simply will not take the fighter to the republic, and he may die during a staged attempt to escape. “Today, of course, I would like to see my son, and he also misses his homeland, but there is such a danger that everything could repeat itself, like in 2013,” adds the athlete’s mother.
Anastasia Kurilova
17:36 — REGNUM World MMA Champion Murad Amriev detained in the Bryansk region. He was put on the wanted list by the Grozny police department in February 2017 on charges of using a forged document. According to the athlete’s mother, the reason for the accusation was an error in the date of birth indicated in the passport, writes RBC.
Amriev's lawyer Petr Zaikin states that the reason is different - his client is allegedly wanted in connection with “allegations of blood feud on the part of a high-ranking Chechen police official.”
The object of the blood feud is Amriev’s brother, the defense lawyer told the publication, but “as you know, blood feud also extends to relatives.” The athlete's older brother is accused of assassination by one of the high-ranking representatives of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, he left for Germany, and now his younger brother has to answer for the assassination attempt, the publication says.
In 2013, Murad Amriev appealed to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture with a statement that in August he was held in handcuffs for several days in one of the departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the city of Grozny, beaten and tortured with electric shock. After he was released, he left Chechnya.
Currently, Amriev, who has been put on the wanted list, has been detained and is in a temporary detention center, which was confirmed to RBC by the Bryansk linear department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for transport.
As reported IA REGNUM. filed a claim in court.
The Leninsky District Court of the city of Grozny found that the information published by the Committee against Torture and Granami.Ru was untrue and discredited the business reputation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic, and ordered the organization and Amriev himself to refute the previously posted information on the official website.
Currently, there are no comments regarding the detention of Murad Amriev on the official websites of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya and the Bryansk region. The fact of detention is confirmed by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which writes that the MMA world champion according to the World Mixed Martial Arts Federation, Murad Amriev, was detained on June 4, 2017 at the Suzemka station in the Bryansk region.
“Human rights activists consider this detention illegal and seriously fear that the upcoming transfer to Chechnya could threaten Murad’s life and health,” the human rights organization said in an official statement.
9 June 2017, 12:10How it all started: fighter Murad Amriev was forced to flee Chechnya and left Russia after being tortured by Chechen police in 2013. His older brother was suspected (unofficially, no cases were opened) of an attempt on the life of Grozny police chief Magomed Dashaev. But Murad Amriev’s brother left the country and now lives in Germany. And Murad essentially became a hostage of the police: he was tortured with electric shocks, hung from the ceiling, and beaten. Amriev turned to the investigative authorities with allegations of torture, and after another refusal, he left the republic. His family was told blood feud. Murad Amriev himself moved to Ukraine and within a few years became the world champion in MMA.
June 4 at night he was taken off the train in Bryansk (he was going to Moscow to reissue documents). The police said that Amriev was wanted at the request of Chechnya. Bryansk police officers informed their Chechen colleagues about the arrest. Human rights activists wrote an urgent request to the ECHR about the threat to Amriev’s life and health. And the very next day, Chechen special forces surrounded the building in Bryansk where Amriev was interrogated. Amriev's extradition to the Chechens could happen at any moment. To prevent this, local lawyer Tarasov, hired by the relatives, came up with an original plan: he persuaded Amriev to incriminate himself in any other crime that would have been committed on the territory of Bryansk in order to delay the time of extradition to Chechnya at least for the period of verification by Bryansk investigators of this very “confession.” Murad Amriev incriminated himself in insulting a border guard officer while crossing the Ukrainian-Russian border.
June 5, 2017. Nizhny Novgorod
The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (the head office is in Nizhny Novgorod) learned about the detention of Murad Amriev from Murad Amriev’s mother.
The Chairman of the Committee, Igor Kalyapin, immediately contacted the Chairman of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Fedotov. Mikhail Alexandrovich began the well-established procedure of “putting everyone on their ears.” The first appeal regarding Amriev was sent to the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation Kolokoltsev.
The committee also turned to lawyer Pyotr Zaikin for help. The question of where to go was being decided: to Bryansk or straight to Grozny. The chances of Amriev being extradited to the Chechens were extremely high; upon arrival in Bryansk, the lawyer might no longer find his client.
(Petr Zaikin is one of the bravest lawyers)
The Committee's lawyers prepared and sent a complaint to the Strasbourg court asking for urgent protective measures for Amriev. The essence of this mechanism: the ECHR promptly asks the Russian government to provide protection to its citizen on the territory of its own country. It sounds absurd, but in fact it is an extremely effective measure.
June 5. Moscow
Federal media and Facebook are joining in to save Amriev. The first information about the detention appeared from Nizhny Novgorod journalist Konstantin Gusev. This was followed by a publication on the Novaya Gazeta website. The entire Facebook feed is filled with alarming reposts about the champion Amriev, who is awaiting extradition to the Chechen security forces in the Bryansk temporary detention center.
The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation is aware of the situation. There is hope that Amriev's extradition to Chechnya will not take place. At least it won’t take place on June 5th. Lawyer Zaikin and employees of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture travel to Bryansk.
June 6. Bryansk
9.00. The head of the Bryansk temporary detention facility is having a meeting. Stormy. They are trying to explain to the Chechen detectives who came to pick up Amriev that their accompanying papers demanding the extradition of Amriev do not comply with the laws. Russian Federation. Therefore, there can be no extradition to the Chechen convoy. Amriev must be released.
9.30. Lawyer Zaikin enters the temporary detention center to meet with his client.
10.00. Amriev's 48-hour detention period is ending. Exactly at the appointed hour, the doors of the temporary detention center swing open, and Murad Amriev and Pyotr Zaikin are released. In an interview with Novaya Gazeta, Murad thanks everyone who helped in his rescue.
10.15. To resolve the situation with the statement in which Amriev incriminated himself in insulting the border guard, Murad and his lawyer (as well as the entire support group) move to the building of the Bryansk prosecutor's office and, concurrently, the investigative department. Amriev must write an explanation to investigator Yevgeny Zmozhny, under what circumstances and why he incriminated himself. However, investigator Zmozhny locked himself in his office. The reason for this behavior becomes clear very soon. Chechen opera houses appear in the prosecutor's office building, and a bus with masked Chechen special forces is parked next to the building. The Chechens take the building under siege. One of the officers (in a blue T-shirt and with a pistol on his belt) clearly tells the lawyer that he has an order to take Amriev to Chechnya, that he doesn’t care, that there are no legal grounds for this order, that “everyone is free except Amriev.” There is a real threat of Amriev being seized by force by the Chechens.
11.00. There are reports from lawyer Zaikin that the Bryansk police, in fact, are not preventing their Chechen colleagues from capturing Amriev.
11.30. Lawyer Zaikin records the testimony of Murad Amriev on video. Amriev says that he recognized in one of the Chechen operas the man who tortured him in 2013 in Grozny. He also reports that Chechen security forces are preventing him from freely leaving the building of the Bryansk prosecutor's office.
Based on reports from lawyers, Amriev’s relatives, and employees of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the media are conducting an almost live broadcast, recording an amazing fact: Chechen police, for unknown reasons, without hiding their faces, names, ranks, strictly referring to the order of the Chechen leadership, are completely openly trying to kidnap a person on the territory of another region of the Russian Federation. But Bryansk police, investigators and prosecutors cannot do anything about it.
It becomes obvious that only a miracle can save Amriev.
At 13.00 lawyer Zaikin gets in touch. A miracle happened. At some point, all the characters gather in the office of investigator Zmozhny - Chechen and Bryansk opera, prosecutors, Amriev's lawyers. Chechen operatives rudely insist that investigator Zmozhny hand over Amriev to them. The investigator almost gives in. He's clearly scared. Bryansk police also do not show an ounce of courage. Apparently, only lawyers are not afraid of Chechen operas. They enter into a furious verbal altercation with the Chechens.
On what basis do you want to take Amriev to Chechnya? - asks opera lawyer Zaikin.
He is on the federal wanted list.
Based on what article?
What's the difference! - the Chechen policeman answers irritably.
It is at this moment that Murad Amriev realizes that this is the ideal moment to escape. He leaves the building, goes to his friends’ car, gets in...
He writes to the lawyer: “I’ll get in touch when I’m in a safe place.”
The Chechen special forces, who were on duty on the bus near the prosecutor's office building, do not see Amriev. The special forces are waiting for commands from the Chechen operas. But they notice too late that the bird has flown away from the cage.
But the story doesn't end there. On the night of June 8, while crossing the Russian-Belarusian border by Belarusian border guards, Murad Amriev was detained and taken to the Dobrush police station. His lawyer Zaikin was immediately informed about this, who immediately flew to his client.
Amriev's lawyer Petr Zaikin said that he had not yet been allowed to see his client.
“We are standing at the police department building. He's still there. We watch the cars that leave. They shouted at him through the window, but he was taken to another office,” said Pyotr Zaikin. Earlier it became known that the Belarusian authorities decided to immediately expel Murad Amriev. All authorized ministries of Belarus have been instructed to urgently prepare and immediately carry out the expulsion of Murad Amriev. That is, document it and hand it over to representatives of Russia at the zero kilometer of the Russian-Belarusian border.
Murad Amriev, who had previously been detained in the Belarusian Dobrush, was taken out of the police department and taken to an unknown direction. Lawyers and journalists follow the motorcade, trying not to lose sight of it. But two columns of three cars each left the police department, one of which “was a decoy.” Pyotr Zaikin says: “One column is moving towards the border, we overtook it. We don’t see the second column, maybe it has gone far ahead,” he added. - “We lost him. That’s it.”
After several days of detention, MMA world champion Murad Amriev escaped from the Bryansk transport prosecutor's office, which was blocked by Chechen special forces. report human rights activists of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
Who is Murad Amriev?
Amriev is a native of Chechnya who, after being tortured by the Grozny police in 2013, fled the region. His case is being handled by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
Then Amriev told human rights activists that one of the “high-ranking Chechen police officers,” Magomed Dashayev, accused his older brother, who lived in Germany, of attempting to commit suicide and demanded that he come to Chechnya. According to Amriev, the police tortured him for two days and then released him. The fighter immediately fled to Ukraine, and the police declared blood feud against his family.
In 2013, after Murad’s departure, he was put on the wanted list for using a deliberately forged document; Amriev’s passport contained a typo. Instead of 1985, the year of birth was written as 1986. After some time, the search was closed.
In June, Murad had to return to Russia to renew his Schengen visa. He was put on the wanted list for the second time in February 2017 in connection with the same case.
What's happening?
On the afternoon of June 4, Chechen MMA world champion Murad Amriev was removed from a passenger train en route from Ukraine to Russia and detained. Formally, he was suspected of using a forged document. The detainee was taken to a temporary detention center in Bryansk.
Later, he was released from the temporary detention center, but transferred to the building of the transport prosecutor's office, which was blocked by Chechen security forces and special forces under the pretext that the fighter was allegedly on the “federal wanted list”, but no documents were shown to either the lawyer or the fighter himself.
Novaya Gazeta obtained an audio recording of a conversation between the fighter’s lawyer and a Chechen operative. When asked about violations of the Russian Constitution, he laughed.
In one of the escorts, reported lawyer Petr Zaikin, Amriev identified one of the police officers who tortured him in 2013.
Amriev’s lawyer also said that one of the police “pulled out a gun.” He also feared that the fighter might be forcibly transported to Chechnya.
How did Amriev escape?
Amriev managed to freely leave the prosecutor’s office building at a time when operatives from Chechnya, investigators from Bryansk and the fighter’s lawyers were in the office of investigator Zmozhny. According to Novaya Gazeta, Chechen representatives rudely insisted that the Bryansk prosecutor's office should hand over Amriev to them.
While there was a verbal altercation between the security forces and the lawyers, Amriev left the building and drove off in his acquaintances' Lada Priora in an unknown direction. The Chechen special forces did not have time to react in time.
According to the “Committee,” at 10 a.m. on May 6, Amriev was given a release order in the temporary detention facility. He was not given a written undertaking not to leave. But formally he could not leave the prosecutor's office building until one o'clock in the afternoon local time.
Back in 2015, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, prevented federal authorities from carrying out special operations inside Chechnya without his personal approval. Otherwise, he authorized the security forces of the republic to shoot at the police to kill. He stated this after Stavropol police, during his arrest, killed Dzhambulat Dadaev, who was on the federal wanted list.
Murad Amriev was taken by convoy from the Dobrush Regional Democratic Forces and taken to an unknown direction. Perhaps to the border for transfer.
World MMA champion Murad Amriev, crossing the Russian-Belarusian border tonight, is threatened with deportation to Russia, to the city of Bryansk, due to the fact that he was put on the federal wanted list in Russia.
He was added to the wanted database by the Staropromyslovsky Department of Internal Affairs of Grozny.
There are doubts about the legality of the grounds for putting Amriev on the wanted list. Back in 2014, he was removed from the wanted list for the same reasons he is in the database now, and his wanted case was closed. On the same basis, he was released from the temporary detention center in Bryansk on June 6. After which, Amriev left Bryansk, and Kadyrov’s men, who came with the capture group and with the goal of taking Amriev to Grozny, were left with nothing. But, apparently, they did not calm down.
At the moment, the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Gomel Regional Executive Committee of the Republic of Belarus is negotiating with the Russian side on the extradition of Amriev to the Russian side. At the same time, who exactly will receive it from Russia is unknown. It is quite possible that these will be Chechen security forces.
Amriev's lawyer is still on his way to Gomel. The decision to expel is made in violation of the right to defense and all legislation of Belarus. Belarusian legislation does not allow the issue of extradition to be resolved within such a timely manner; this decision is made only by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Belarus and this is a rather lengthy procedure (takes at least 40 days).
Larger - . Let us remind you that on June 4 it became known that Chechen Murad Amriev was removed from the train and detained at the Suzemka station in the Bryansk region. He was on the federal wanted list for using allegedly forged documents. Amriev was removed from the search for this charge back in 2013 in accordance with Order No. 213 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and the search case was closed due to the lack of corpus delicti in his actions. However, Chechen police officers, who had been pursuing the Amriev family for many years and declared a blood feud against the Amrievs, for unclear reasons, included Murad Amriev in the federal wanted list on February 1, 2017.
