CAT/C/59/D/634/2014
Factual background
2.1
The first complainant is an ethnic Ingush of the Muslim faith who was born in
Kazakhstan, where he obtained a higher education degree as a mechanical engineer. He had
lived in Grozny, Chechnya, Russian Federation, since 1992, working in the oil industry. He
fled for Ingushetia, Russian Federation, with his parents and three sisters in 1995 because
of the military operation in Chechnya. After living in a refugee camp in Karabulak,
Ingushetia, until 2001, the first complainant moved to Nasyr-Kort, a suburb of Nazran, with
his parents and two sisters. He gradually started a small business repairing cars and then
opened a grocery shop in Nazran in 2008. On 21 June 2009, he married the second
complainant, also an ethnic Ingush of the Muslim faith, who was born in the Russian
Federation.
2.2
The first complainant submits that, on 15 September 2013, while he was in the
grocery shop with his youngest sister, two men of North Caucasian appearance entered.
One of the men spoke Ingush to the first complainant. The two men spoke Russian to each
other. They bought large quantities of food 1 and subsequently asked the first complainant to
transport them and the goods to the village of Galashki, which he agreed to do. On the way,
he was asked to stop his car on the edge of a forest, and one of the two men made a
telephone call in Ingush;2 a few minutes later, three other men came out of the forest. The
men, who wore camouflage, were bearded and armed, turned out to be insurgents. The first
complainant was told by one of the two men whom he was transporting in his car to forget
what he had seen. He was also told that the men knew where he and his spouse lived and
that their current conversation was being videotaped on a mobile phone by the second man
in the car.
2.3
Shortly after midnight on 18 November 2013, the first complainant received a call
from his elder sister, who told him that armed men wearing camouflage and balaclavas
were at their parents’ house, where the complainants’ family lived, and had arrested his
youngest sister. 3 When he arrived at the house, he was struck in the neck and lost
consciousness. The complainants submitted to the Committee two handwritten letters, in
Russian, from their neighbours certifying that they had witnessed the incident on 18
November 2013 and saw the first complainant’s motionless body being dragged to two
unmarked vehicles standing next to his parents’ house, while his youngest sister walked to
the vehicles in the company of the armed men.
2.4
The first complainant woke up in prison, where he was detained for 14 days, 4 during
which he was interrogated by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation 5 and
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At the asylum screening interview conducted by the Danish Immigration Service on 7 February 2014,
at the substantive asylum interview conducted by the Danish Immigration Service on 24 March 2014
and at the hearing before the Refugee Appeals Board on 12 September 2014, the first complainant
made inconsistent statements about the type and quantity of goods bought by the two men.
At the substantive asylum interview conducted by the Danish Immigration Service, the first
complainant stated that the phone conversation was very short and in Russian.
There is no information on file as to why the first complainant’s sister was arrested and under what
circumstances she was reportedly released three days later.
At the asylum screening interview conducted by the Danish Immigration Service, the first
complainant stated that he had been detained for 1 1/2 months before his departure from the Russian
Federation. At the substantive asylum interview conducted by the Danish Immigration Service and at
the hearing before the Refugee Appeals Board, the first complainant made inconsistent statements
about the circumstances when he awoke in prison, including whether he was alone in the cell, whether
he was doused in water and whether he was handcuffed.
According to the first complainant’s asylum application of 6 January 2014, completed by him in
Russian, he left the country and fled with his family because his life was in real danger, since the