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“As soon as they had done that, they attached wires to the little fingers of both my hands. A couple of seconds later they turned on the current and started beating me with rubber truncheons wherever they could. I couldn’t stand the pain and started yelling, calling out the name of the Almighty and begging them to stop. In response, so as not to have to listen to my shouting, they put a black hood over my head. How long this went on I can’t accurately remember, but I began to lose consciousness from the pain. When they saw that, they took the hood off and asked if I would talk. I said I would, although I did not know what to say to them. I said whatever they wanted so as to avoid the torture at least for a while.

“They unhooked me, removed the pipe, and threw me on the floor. They said, ‘Talk.’ In reply I said I had nothing to tell them. In response they hit me with the pipe I had been hanging from, again on my right eye. I fell sideways and, almost unconscious, felt them again beating me wherever they could. They hung me up once more and repeated what they had done before. How long it went on I do not remember. They kept drenching me with water.

“The following day they bathed me and rubbed something on my face and body. At about dinner time an officer in civilian clothes entered and told me some journalists had come and that I was to admit responsibility for three murders and robbery with violence. He threatened that if I did not agree they would do it all again, and also would shame me by degrading me in a sexual manner. I agreed. After I had given the journalists the interview, they threatened me with the same degrading treatment if I didn’t testify that all the beating I had had, which they had inflicted on me, had occurred while I was supposedly attempting to escape.”

Zaur Zakriev, the lawyer defending Beslan Gadayev, informed the members of the Memorial Human Rights Center that this physical and psychological duress had been inflicted on his client in the Grozny Rural District Office of the Interior Ministry. According to the lawyer, the defendant did indeed admit to committing robbery with violence in 2004 against members of the law enforcement agencies. However, the agents decided to obtain further confessions relating to a number of crimes he had not committed in the village of Starye Atagi in their district.

The lawyer states that the brutal violence inflicted on the defendant left visible signs of physical injury on his body. The Medical Section of Pre-Trial Detention Facility No. 1 in Grozny, where Gadayev is currently held under Article 209 of the Russian Criminal Code on a charge of robbery with violence, has issued an official medical certificate listing evidence of systematic beating, physical injury in the form of welts, scratches, bruises, broken ribs, and damage to internal organs.

The defence lawyer has lodged a formal complaint about these gross violations of human rights with the Prosecutor’s Office of the Chechen Republic. […]

Politkovskaya’s text breaks off here, incomplete. The editors are seeking to establish what further episodes were to be included.

* * *

A video shows what appear to be members of one of the Chechen security agencies who have apprehended and are torturing two young men. One of those detained is sitting in a car, bleeding. A knife can be seen stuck in the region of the victim’s ear. The other seems to have been thrown out of the car on to the tarmac. The torturers are not themselves visible, and only Chechen speech (Melkhi dialect) can be heard, interspersed with swearing:

Verbatim text:

“Putin said it. ‘View it from every angle,’ he said.”

“He should know!” (Addresses the victim insultingly) “This bitch just won’t die, […] fucking goat, bastard …, fucked up queer. Doesn’t he look handsome? I couldn’t live without you.”

“Croak, pal, croak, you shit! For God’s sake, know what I’m saying? Do it …”

“Is he done? Is he done now?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, we’re leaving. Over here!”

“Hey, move your asses, take up positions,