Chechen “Assassin” Alleges Tortured False Confession, Goes on Trial

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.

Adam Osmayev still bears the chemical burns from the Odessa apartment explosion, in which he was either framed, or participating in a terrorist plot. (Photo Courtesy of the Telegraph)

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

Kenyan Court Clears Candidate to Run Despite Crimes Against Humanity Charges

By Hannah Stewart
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya — The High Court of Kenya dismissed arguments on Thursday that Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta’s pending trial in the International Criminal Court for charges of crimes against humanity renders him ineligible for the presidential elections.

Uhuru Kenyatta (right) and running mate William Ruto are accused of fueling post-election violence in 2007. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are two of four accused at the International Criminal Court of orchestrating tribal fighting that killed 1,200 people after the last vote in 2007.  Both men deny the charges.

Kenyatta, a former finance minister and the son of the country’s founding president, is running a close second to Prime Minister Raila Odinga according to opinion polls for the March 4 presidential election.

Odinga and Kenyatta lead largely ethnic-based coalitions with few ideological differences, and there was concern regarding how Kenyatta’s supporters might react had he been barred from the elections.

Similar ethnic rivalries fueled the fighting after the last presidential elections five years ago.  The violence marred the image of the east African country, the region’s most powerful economy and a key western ally in the war against militant Islam in the region.

In reaching their decision to decline the case, the panel of five judges said in an oral statement, “the High Court lacks jurisdiction to deal with a question relating to the election of a president.”  Moreover, the judges stated that, “this is an issue that is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.”

The Principal Judge of the High Court, Mbogholi Msagha, further explained that the court lacked jurisdiction over the petitions filed by various legal and rights groups.  He stated that the petitioners should have requested the electoral commission exclude Kenyatta and Ruto the ballot.

Msagha also said that the court could not deny Kenyatta and Ruto their right to contest the poll because they had not been convicted.  He added that, “they are presumed innocent until proved otherwise.”

It is not immediately clear whether an appeal will be submitted to the highest court.  However, it is likely that, if elected president, Kenyatta’s first foreign trip abroad will be to appear in the Hague at a hearing scheduled for April.

Likewise, the Kenyan government is being sued for police brutality in the violence following the 2007 election.  The families of seven people shot dead and eight wounded survivors of the post-election violence filed a lawsuit this week to sue the Kenyan government.  The petitioners claim that the police fired the shots during a dispute over who won Kenya’s 2007 presidential election.

Four human rights groups are also part of the suit against the government.  Moreover, there have been warnings from various international human rights groups that the police are not ready to prevent electoral violence while refraining from human rights violations.  Advocacy groups have criticized the Kenyan police for decades of ineffectiveness, corruption, human rights violations, and impunity.

For more information, please see:

ABC – Kenyan Government Sued for Police Brutality – 15 February 2013

BBC News – Uhuru Kenyatta Free to Run After Kenya Election Ruling – 15 February 2013

Reuters – Kenyatta Cleared to Run in Kenya Vote Despite Charges – 15 February 2013

The Guardian – Kenyan Court Clears Way for Uhuru Kenyatta to Run in Election – 15 February 2013

Ecuadorian Terrorists, Fighting For The Preservation Of The Amazon

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

QUITO, Ecuador – The authorization for a Chinese company’s development of a large copper mine within Ecuador’s amazon province incited hundreds of protesters claiming that the mining would contaminate the water sources and force people from their lands. In today’s Ecuador, these people might be deemed terrorists.

Shuar tribes in the Amazon promise to fight mineral and oil expansion to the deat. (Photo Courtesy of Pachamama Alliance)

It’s becoming harder to identify exactly what a terrorists in Ecuador does. Years ago it was the bombing of civilians and diplomats for political and military leverage, today? It’s the protests and resistance to what the government calls development, but what the protesters characterize as the protection of the amazon.

The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, in an attempt to halt the growing expansionism of Amazonian lands has stated numerous times, that the president had failed in his promise to defend the interests of Ecuador’s indigenous population, and is in fact prosecuting 189 Indian leaders on the grounds that they are terrorists despite his promises to support the people and their environmental interests. In a statement “The person that has infringed most on our rights in the past four years has been the president.”

In a special assembly held last year, the infamous “head shrinking” Shuar tribe of Ecuador declared “The Amazon does not have to pay for the external debt the government has with china.” When Canadian and Chinese mining companies came to strip mine swathes of land, they lived up to those words. In the last ten years indigenous tribes have begun taking militant action against those that would destroy the eco-integrity of the land. And for that work, they have been deemed to be committing terrorism by Ecuadorians President Rafael Correa.

With the growth of South American infrastructure and the move to total industrialization the demand for oil is growing. This growth has led to a quickening arrival of drills from China and Canada, and unfortunately for the indigenous tribes of the amazon rain forest, who live and rely on the ecosystem underneath the lush rain forest, are vast deposits of oil, metals and minerals.

Armed resistance and violence continues against mining camps, and have been met with state security forces and the strong arm of Correa who has made a hobby out of arresting activists and intimidating journalists who threaten his conjured image of the ecologically minded man-of-the-people.

As hostiles continue, the Shuar tribe echoed a call for resistance, “to get the gold, they will have to kill everyone of us.”

For more information, please see:

Salon – “To Get The Gold, They Will Have To Kill Every One Of Us” – 10 February 2013

Red State – Ecuador’s Hugo Chavez – 7 February 2013

Pachamama Alliance – Shaur Assembly Says: “The Amazon Does Not Have To Pay For The External Debt The Government Has With China” – 1 October 2012

Al Jazeera – Indigenous Resistance Is The New ‘Terrorism’ – 10 July 2011

 

“Attacks on the Press” in the Middle East

By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) just released its annual assessment on how press freedom is being treated throughout the world; and, the results were not pretty. The report details both the censorship of information, as well as the treatment of individual reporters. A new edition to the report included a “risk list” of ten places where press freedoms were particularly bad in 2012. Three such countries, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, are located in the Middle East.

In no previous time have journalists’ lives been at greater risk. (Photo Courtesy of the Committee to Protect Journalists)

This past year was not the safest of years to be a journalist. Globally, the number of journalists who were imprisoned in 2012 reached an all time high. Two hundred and thirty two journalists were reportedly detained, which is an increase of fifty three for the year before.

Seventy journalists had died while actively reporting in the past year which is a forty-three percent increase from 2011. CPJ’s research has came up with the harrowing figure that over the past two decades, one journalist is killed while working, once every eight days. These figures only include the known dead. There are at least thirty-five more journalists who are currently missing.

At this moment, Syria is the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. In the past year, at least twenty-eight journalist have been killed, while another two are missing.

While not as many journalists have been killed in Turkey; in no other place have more journalists been imprisoned. Forty-nine journalists were jailed in 2012. Turkey’s government utilizes laws which restrict the press’ freedom of speech, in order to curtail dissent.

Only four less journalists were imprisoned in Iran, however, the likelihood of their mistreatment during detention was far greater than anywhere else. Reporters and editors faced torture, solitary confinement, and deprivation of medical care. Those who were formally detained generally were arrested under some anti-state charge.

CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney stated that, “when journalists are silenced, whether through violence or laws, we all stand to lose because perpetrators are able to obscure misdeeds, silence dissent, and disempower citizens.”

He added, “the battle to control information is an assault on public accountability that cannot go unchallenged. Governments must prosecute perpetrators and stop those seeking to incapacitate public oversight by blunting critical and probing reporting.”

Not only does limitation on freedom of speech violate international human rights law in its own regard, but the continuance of these attacks on the press serve to continue the existence of impunity in the Middle East.

The CPJ has been releasing its annual report since 1990.

For further information, please see:

Guardian – Journalism Under Attack Across the Globe Imperils Press Freedom – 14 February 2013

Huffington Post – CPJ Attacks on the Press Report: Number of Journalists Imprisoned, Killed Spiked in 2012 – 14 February 2013

Washington Post – Glance at Attacks on the Press – 14 February 2013

CPJ – Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the Front Lines in 2012

WOZA Protesters Beaten and Detained During Anti-Constitution Demo

By Ryan Aliman
Impunity Watch, Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Several members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were assaulted and detained after two consecutive protests against the new draft constitution.

More than 200 WOZA members gathered outside the police station as they demanded to be arrested in solidarity with their colleagues. (Photo courtesy of The Zimbabwean)

On February 13, WOZA members in Harare marched towards the parliament to stage a demonstration against the draft constitution.

Believing that the draft constitution is a “result of negotiations behind closed doors and a deal that suits the principals and the political parties in the inclusive government”, around 50 women filled the streets and rallied against its enactment. “… it was written for a current political climate and not for the future generation. A constitution is supposed to be written by the people because they should determine how they want to be governed. It is their role to give the rule to the rulers,” read some of the flyers the WOZA members were distributing during their march.

However, as they were approaching the parliament building, they were blocked by police officers. In an attempt to disperse the group, the police fired tear gas at the WOZA members. Afterwards, they arrested a number of protestors. Reports say that the police also used baton sticks, locally known as “sjamboks”, to beat up the detainees as they were being bundled into police vehicles.

The arrested WOZA members were eventually released without charge on the same day. But according to Dr. Tarisai Mutangi from the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, a number of women sustained major injuries from the assault.

The following day, members from the Bulawayo chapter held their annual Valentine’s Day protest. With the theme – One Love, the protest was set to be staged outside the police Headquarters in 9th Avenue, at Southampton House. It aimed to raise awareness about police brutality and to urge the police to respond to the group’s formal complaints about arbitrary arrests and the police’s use of indiscriminate violence against protesters. Although the march began smoothly and peacefully, as the members neared the venue, police officers started chasing them off with baton sticks. Once again, WOZA members were brought into custody without charge and released on the same day. However, according to WOZA leader Jennifer Williams, unlike the arrests the previous day, six of their male co-members and one female co-member remain in detention.

Amnesty International’s southern Africa director Noel Kututwa condemned the violent treatment of WOZA members by the police forces. “This most recent incident sounds yet another alarm bell for the exercise of internationally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in advance of the referendum on a new constitution and elections later this year,” Kututwa stated. “Human rights violations by the police, including arbitrary arrests and raids at offices of human rights defenders, go against the calls for tolerance made by President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai,” he added.

 

For further information, please see:

WOZA – 195 arrested during Valentines Day protest, 50 beaten, Bertha remains in custody – 15 February 2013

All Africa – Zimbabwe: Woza Valentine’s Day Protestors Beaten And Arrested in Bulawayo – 14 February 2013

Amnesty International – Zimbabwe: Eight women arrested after handing out teddy bears and roses in peaceful protest – 14 February 2013

The Zimbabwean – Police arrest and assault WOZA members – 14 February 2013

ZimEye – Woza Woman Strips Naked Before Police, 180 Arrested – 14 February

SW Radio Africa – WOZA women beaten & detained after anti-constitution demo – 13 February 2013