By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

ODESSA, Ukraine – Last January, an alleged plot to assassinate then prime minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin was exposed when an apartment in Odessa Ukraine exploded.  Chechen native and British-educated Adam Osmayev, 31, was arrested and charged with plotting to blow up Putin’s motorcade.  At the time of his arrest, Osmayev confessed.  However, analysts and opposition figures long dismissed the plot was a mere ploy to boost Putin’s ratings before the critical presidential election.  With his case now before a Ukrainian court, Osmayev has retracted his confession and testimony, alleging that he was tortured and harm to his family threatened if he failed to cooperate.

Osmayev related his version of events to the British newspaper, The Independent, and to the Ukrainian court.  Osmayev says that he was at the apartment of two acquaintances when he smelled gas before an explosion ripped through the house.  He denies knowing the other two men another Chechen called Ruslan Madayev, and a Kazakh citizen called Ilya Pyanzin very well, and assets that there was never any assassination plot.

Nevertheless, Osmayev, having entered Ukraine on a false passport, fled the scene of the explosion and was forcefully arrested later.  Madayev was killed in the explosion and Pyanzin was arrested on site.

Describing his arrest, Osmayev recalled, “When they broke into the flat to arrest me, they put me face down on the floor.  I wasn’t resisting, but they put handcuffs on me with my hands behind my back, and started beating me, on the back of the head, and with guns.”  He said that experience was nothing compared to what he would have experienced had he failed to cooperate.

During his interrogation, Osmayev alleges that authorities continued to beat and torture him.  He claims during the interrogation his ribs were cracked, he was injected him with a narcotic substances, and he was threatened with physical mutilation.  At one point, Osmayev claims, “[T]hey covered my head with a plastic bag. They told me they had my father and stepmother as hostages, and they would be arrested if I didn’t confess.”

Osmayev further claims that his interrogators threatened to hand him over to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s ruthless Kremlin-backed leader, if he did not confess to the plot against Putin.  By then, Osmayev says “I was ready to admit to anything, even plotting to kill the Pope. Because what Kadyrov does is well known to the world. More than anything I was worried about my father. He had a heart attack a few years ago and I was more worried for him that I was for myself.”

Osmayev’s father, Aslanbek Osmayev has expressed a belief that his son was targeted because of Aslanbek’s former involvement in the Chechen oil industry and a dispute with Ramzan Kadyrov.  Aslanbek claims, “They couldn’t get to me so they went for Adam.  There wasn’t an ounce of truth in [earlier allegations against Aslanbek], and there is no truth in these latest ones, either. . . I think it is partly personal revenge against me, and partly it was an attempt to please superiors with a ‘convenient’ terrorist plot just before the elections.”

Osmayev’s wife, Anina Okuyeva, who also claims she has received anonymous threats that she would be put in a mental asylum if she publicly criticized the case against her husband, read a statement on his behalf Thursday before a court session: “The testimony was given as a consequence of physical and psychological pressure, placed on me by security services from the moment of my detention: During the examination of the case, I took back, in written form, all of the testimony given earlier and demanded an examination of the fact of torture. Considering all these given facts, in accordance with Article 63 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I am forced to refuse to give an explanation in the court session. I ask you to enter this statement into the case file.”

Moscow attempted but failed to have Osmayev extradited to Russia.  He appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and a Ukraine court suspended the extradition.  However, alleged co-conspirator Ilya Pyanzin was extradited to Russia in August.  Osmayev has since renounced his Russian citizenship and applied for refugee status in Georgia and Finland.

Even so, if the Ukraine court convicts him of the charge: “To carry out a terrorist act with the aim of the elimination of the head of the government of the Russian Federation, V. V. Putin,” Osmayev will face up to a 15-year prison sentence.  After Thursday’s hearing, the judge adjourned the case until mid-March.

Osmayev’s lawyer, Olga Chertok, who works independently out of a small office in a shabby Odessa courtyard, has denounced the prosecutor’s case as full of inconsistencies.  Known for usually taking on corporate raiding cases Chertok says authorities tried to keep her away from the Osmayev case because, “They wanted a pliant lawyer, and they knew that wasn’t me.”  Since taking on the case, Chertok has noticed she has been followed and suspects that her telephone has been bugged.

Nevertheless, she remains undeterred.  “There’s not a single piece of evidence that implicates [Osmayev] in any way.”  She explains that she believes the home-made explosive devices were planted in order to give Putin a PR edge before elections.

In Russia, the events of the alleged assassination attempt were not released until February, a week before the Russian presidential election.  News outlets claimed the three men had been caught making bombs from saltpetre, aluminum powder and other substances when one of them accidentally went off.  A computer found in the apartment, alleged to belong to Osmayev, contained internet history of bomb-making websites, and also of video footage of Putin’s motorcade route.  Named as the main organizer, film of Osmayev, his face covered with cuts and bruise, was shown admitting that “the plan was to go to Moscow and carry out an attack on Putin”.

Andrei Soldatov, a security analyst pointed out, “Putin is perhaps the best protected leader in the world.  Attacking his motorcade is unrealistic, he travels much faster than any Western leader would be able to as the streets are always cleared of all other cars before his motorcade arrives.” Some analysts have also noted that assassination attempts have long been a favorite ploy of leaders attempting to demonstrate their own importance.

Osmayev says that although he is a devout Muslim, he has never been interested in radical Islam or terrorism. “I was educated in Britain, I feel like a very European person,” he says. “I don’t believe in terrorism, I believe in freedom of speech and human rights. That’s why I’m against Kadyrov in Chechnya. I have never been involved in any kind of terrorism.”

For further information, please see:

RIA Novosti – Putin Murder Plot Suspect Testifies, Alleges Torture – 14 February 2013

The Independent – Chechen Links Vladimir Putin Plot Trial to Row with Ramzan Kadyrov – 13 February 2013

The Telegraph – Chechen Man Educated in Cotswolds to go on Trial over Putin Plot – 13 February 2013

The Independent – Adam Osmayev: the Public Schoolboy and a Plot to Kill Vladimir Putin – 8 February 2013

RIA Novosti – Putin Death Plot Suspect Retracts Testimony, Claims Torture – 17 January 2013

The Moscow Times – Putin Assassination Plot Suspect Retracts Testimony, Alleges Torture – 18 January 2013