CAT/C/63/D/717/2015 The facts as submitted by the complainants 2.1 In 1994, A.Sh. fought against the army of the Russian Federation during its first military campaign in the Chechen Republic (Chechnya). On 3 December 2000, that is to say, after the second military campaign, he and a group of other men from his neighbourhood were stopped by Russian soldiers and taken to an open field where they were requested to disclose the names of the Chechen insurgents in their neighbourhood. When each one of them replied in turn that they did not know of any insurgents, the soldier who questioned A.Sh. fired a shot at him, hitting him in the abdomen. A.Sh. indicates that he was taken to clinical hospital No. 9 in Grozny and provides a medical report to that effect.1 2.2 In September 2009, the brother-in-law of A.Sh. joined a group of Chechen insurgents and went into hiding after becoming a leader of that group. Thereafter, A.Sh. financially supported his sister’s family. In 2010, the brother-in-law asked him to buy medicines for the insurgents. Despite his initial reluctance, A.Sh. finally agreed. The medicines were picked up by the insurgents from his apartment in the nights of 3 to 4 July and 31 July to 1 August 2010. 2.3 In the evening of 2 August 2010, A.Sh. was arrested on his way home from work by three policemen who took him to the Oktyabrsky police station in Grozny. At the police station he was verbally humiliated, severely beaten and strangled until he almost fainted. The interrogators urged him to “tell them everything”, otherwise they would beat him until he died and he would “disappear without trace”. 2.4 A.Sh. admitted having collaborated with insurgents and was interrogated in depth about that collaboration. He was ordered to forward every message he would receive from the insurgents to the authorities, and was forced to sign the minutes of the interrogation and a declaration stating that he would collaborate with them. Afterwards, he was taken to an underground cell. The same night, and with the assistance of a relative, who was the deputy chief of the city police in Grozny, A.Sh. was released. On 4 August 2010, he was taken to outpatient clinic No. 5 in Grozny, where he was diagnosed with a subcutaneous hematoma and multiple bruises.2 2.5 A.Sh. stayed with relatives for about a month and a half, first in Chechnya and then in Ingushetia, before his departure from the Russian Federation. Around that time, insurgents carried out an attack in the village where Ramzan Kadyrov, the current president of Chechnya, lived. This attack led to brisk activity by the secret service. In this context, A.Sh. was searched for at home, at his parents’ home and at his parents-in-law’s home. He left the Russian Federation legally on 30 October 2010 with his elder son, Ah.Sh. They arrived in Switzerland on 3 November 2010. 2.6 Around 20 November 2010, the police came to the shop of A.Sh. in Grozny and enquired about his whereabouts. His wife responded that she did not know, and was then told to leave the shop, without being allowed to take her personal belongings, and was ordered to surrender the keys, so that the police could seal off the shop. Two days later, the police confiscated the car of A.Sh. A few days later, his wife went to the Zavodskoy District Administration in Grozny to request the reopening of the shop and was told that it would remain closed for as long as her husband was on the run, since the shop was owned by him. Her repeated visits to the Zavodskoy District Administration did not yield any results. 2.7 A few days later, in the evening, the police came to the complainants’ apartment and searched it, without a warrant, while enquiring about the whereabouts of A.Sh. In addition, Z.H. was asked to hand over her passport. When she went to a bedroom to get it, the 1 2 2 A.Sh. provides an undated medical certificate from clinical hospital No. 9 in Grozny (available in the Russian original and in German translation), according to which he was brought to the said medical facility on 3 December 2000 with a gunshot wound in the abdomen. A.Sh. provides a medical certificate dated 27 September 2010 from outpatient clinic No. 5 in Grozny (in the Russian original and in German translation), according to which he was diagnosed on 4 August 2010 with cerebral contusion, a subcutaneous hematoma, injury to the thoracic cage and multiple bruises on the body, the left arm and both legs.

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