The family of a Chechen detained after the attack on the Crocus hall in Moscow denounces his death

Asjab Uspanov, a native of Chechnya, died hours after being arrested at a Moscow bus stop following the Crocus theater attack on March 22. The deceased was heading home from work and called his wife to try to reassure her that nothing would happen to her because he was innocent. However, his mother and several Chechen opposition channels that have leaked what they claim is his autopsy report that he was beaten to death at the police station. His case, pending investigation, raises concerns about police impunity in Russia after authorities did not condemn the violence used against suspected terrorists during his arrest. In addition, the Russian Government has announced a new package of measures to tighten control of immigrants.

Uspanov's mother – who went by the surname Kasuev – told the independent newspaper Agentsvo that his son initially asked his wife not to go to the police station. “You have nothing against me,” he told his wife in her first call after being arrested. However, shortly afterward he spoke to his wife on the phone again to ask her to go to the police department after telling her that she had confronted the officers.

When his wife arrived at the police station two hours later, Uspanov was dead. “Her husband is no longer here,” a police officer told her as soon as she entered the police station, the victim's mother told Agentsvo. “No, I recently spoke to him on the phone,” the woman responded. “You spoke, but you will not speak anymore,” the agent stated.

A Chechen opposition channel, 1ADAT, was the first to report Uspanov's death. This past Monday, the group published several videos of Uspanov's autopsy. According to this dissident movement, the agents broke the victim's ribs and spine during the interrogation, who also showed signs of asphyxiation and widespread bruising on his body.

According to the Chechen opposition group, Uspanov resisted at the bus stop when he was surrounded by men who hid their faces, although he later realized that they were police officers. The man who recorded the autopsy broadcast by 1ADAT claims that the agents simulated Uspanov's suicide “to hide his crime.”

The victim's mother trusts that the Russian courts will clarify the death of her son, whose mortal remains already lie in a grave in Chechnya. “I have handed him over to the court of God. For the rest, I base myself on the laws of the Russian Federation, on justice,” the woman told Agentsvo.

Torture

Russian authorities did not report Uspanov's death. The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the day after the attack that it had detained 11 suspects, including the four alleged Crocus concert hall attackers, Tajik citizens who had lived in Russia for years. The detainees have already been brought to justice with obvious signs of torture. In addition, the videos and photographs leaked by the security forces prove several cases of violence: the agents cut off the ear of one of the suspects and put it in his mouth, and they stripped another and connected his body to a device that produces shocks. electrical.

The four alleged attackers were allegedly intercepted on the M-3 highway, which connects Moscow with Ukraine. Although President Vladimir Putin and his agents have reiterated that there is an alleged Ukrainian link in the attack by the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K) – the Kremlin itself acknowledged that the perpetrators are jihadists – other evidence denies this accusation. The Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, denied Putin by stating that the terrorists tried to flee first to his country, not to Ukraine, and the Russian security forces arrested three foreigners this Sunday involved in the attack in the Russian—and Islamic—region. from Dagestan. According to the FSB, those arrested, who were preparing another massacre, financed and provided weapons to the Crocus room attackers.

The terrorist act in the Crocus room, with at least 144 dead and 544 injured, has been the largest suffered in Russia since Putin has been in power. The origin of the attackers has caused a wave of police searches and identifications these days in the streets and in the markets and factories where the immigrant community, especially the Central Asian one, is concentrated. In addition, the Russian Ministry of the Interior announced this Tuesday that it will redouble the pressure on immigrants with even tougher measures.

The Government has announced a bill that will provide it with “a greater legal basis to use modern means and methods of control in the entry and stay of foreign citizens in Russia.” Among other novelties, the authorities will be able to expel immigrants extrajudicially “as a measure of state coercion”, the police will assume powers of Immigration and other administrative bodies, although they will be able to use their monopoly on force, and a “loyalty agreement” will be introduced to Putin's Russia that every foreigner must seal when living in Russia.

Expulsions without judicial guarantees

One of the most controversial points of the reform is that the authorities will be able to expel foreigners and veto their stay without a court intervening. The punishment will not only be applied to criminals, but also to “people who represent a threat to security,” as detailed on Telegram by police spokesperson Irina Volk. “Deportation may be ordered both by a court as a punitive measure, and by federal executive bodies extrajudicially, as a measure of state coercion.”

From now on, the police will assume “the administrative supervision of the stay (residence) of foreign citizens.” The Immigration Department, for example, until now controlled the registration of foreigners in the houses where they live. Now the agents will be able to assume some powers of this body with the novelty that their supervision “involves the use of the powers established by the Police Law.”

The State will also create a list of companies that can hire foreign workers. Likewise, the security forces and other State agencies will also have a unified database with the digitized profiles of each foreigner. This will include the photograph and fingerprints that border agents will take of each person who enters Russian territory.

On the other hand, the Russian authorities will be able to apply a “controlled stay regime” on foreigners who have been prohibited from leaving the country and on immigrants who are illegally in their territory, and a system will be designed so that public organizations know when they should deny aid to an immigrant.

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