On 15 March, the Russian newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” made public a testimony of Chechen law enforcer Suleiman Gezmakhmaev on the extrajudicial killings in Chechnya in 2017.  

According to Gezmakhmaev, those detained in 2017 were tortured and forced to incriminate themselves before the extrajudicial killings. Gezmakhmaev was a Senior Police Sergeant and a fighter of the Akhmat Kadyrov regiment, serving the Chechen law enforcement agencies in the period December 2016-January 2017. He said that he took part in “special measures to detain hundreds of Chechen residents and guarded at least 56 detainees kept in a gym basement of the Akhmat Kadyrov regiment.” Gezmakhmaev also knew about the circumstances of the killings of at least 13 people from among those executed on the night of 26 January 2017. 

“During the week, we brought 56 detainees to the regiment. Many of them first saw each other only in our basement,” Gezmakhmaev said. According to him, the detainees were beaten “as soon as they were placed to the basement. Furthermore, after their detention, all the detainees were tortured with electric current,” Gezmakhmaev said. “Our commanders told us that the detainees were plotting an attack on the Chechen police. The detainees themselves said that they wanted to attack Russian soldiers. However, when tortured with electric current, a person can say whatever you want. Then, after all, they were detained as terrorists, so they were to confess to at least something,” he added, emphasising that among the detained there were 13 “amirs,” militant commanders, and all of them were shot dead after their detention.

The entrance of the editorial office of “Novaya Gazeta” was poured with a chemical liquid of pungent smell, which the newspaper described as an “chemical attack” following the publishing of the eyewitness testimony. It should be noted that Gezmakhmaev’s testimony was the second publication of Novaya Gazeta into the investigation of extrajudicial killings in Chechnya in 2016/2017. The first article was published on 15 February entitled “Execution after death” where copies of the photo tables prepared by the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs with the information about the detention of 108 people were showcased (Caucasus Watch reported).  

Meanwhile, in Dagestan, a counter terrorism operation (CTO) regime was held on 12 March, where civil liberties were suspended from morning until afternoon in the Sovietsky district of Makhachkala. According to the National Anti-Terrorism Committee of Russia, a man was killed during the operation, but his identity was not disclosed. The committee reported that the deceased opened fire on security officials. According to the statement, the man was preparing a terrorist attack on the territory of Dagestan, and special forces were conducting the operation to “to suppress preparations for a terrorist attack” in the region. Local residents told journalists that the deceased had previously served a prison term and, after his release, led a “normal life.”

The last time the CTO regime was enforced in Dagestan was August 2016, during which two brothers, 17-year-old Nabi and 18-year-old Gasanguseyn Gasanguseynov, were killed. At the time, security officials said that two brothers opened fire on them with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and were killed by “return fire.” Following the deaths, and after mounting public pressure, the Dagestan Investigative Committee opened an investigation into the incident. The investigation uncovered that the brothers did not actually have any weapons with them, and that the evidence of their involvement in a terrorist ‘underground’ was falsified by the security forces.