Russia's human rights commissioner says a European delegation found no evidence of mass summary executions in Chechnya

Russian Human Rights Commissioner claims that a delegation from the European Committee Against Torture has visited Chechnya and discovered no evidence of summary executions carried out in January 2017.

According to the news agency Interfax, Tatyana Moskalkova announced on December 6 that the European delegation was unable to corroborate a report by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that as many as 27 people may have been detained and executed in January 2017 outside Grozny, following raids against individuals suspected of being involved in a series of attacks in December 2016 against police officers. Chechen officials deny the allegations.

In November 2017, Moskalkova told reporters that Chechen police have placed in protective custody the relatives of more than a dozen people who disappeared in January. In late July, the BBC reported that relatives of the missing persons were forced to write statements claiming that their loved ones had left for Syria or simply moved away and never come home.

Following Novaya Gazeta’s allegations, Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova visited Chechnya and discovered that Chechen police had opened criminal investigations into the disappearances of 18 people Novaya Gazeta says may have been executed. Independent journalists wrote that the relatives of these missing persons were forbidden from sharing their grievances with Moskalkova. According to the human rights organization Memorial, Moskalkova even met with two men pretending to be two of the missing persons. In fact, they were the victims’ brothers.

On December 5, Novaya Gazeta said that members of the European Committee Against Torture visited Chechnya to investigate local documents, interview residents, and review information about alleged “secret prisons.” The delegation reportedly had a mandate to visit all prison facilities, “both legal and illegal.”