36 CPT: 12TH GENERAL REPORT APPENDIX 6 A. Public statement concerning the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation (issued on 10 July 2001) Since the beginning of the current conflict in the Chechen Republic, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) has visited the North Caucasian region on three occasions. For the last eighteen months, the Committee has striven to maintain a constructive and sustained dialogue with the Russian authorities on various issues related to the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in that part of the Russian Federation. Following an exchange of detailed correspondence in May and June 2001, it has become clear that this dialogue has reached an impasse on at least two issues of great concern to the CPT*. Those issues relate to: I. events in the early stages of the conflict in a detention facility located at Chernokozovo, a village in the north-west of the Chechen Republic; II. action taken to uncover and prosecute cases of ill-treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in the Chechen Republic in the course of the conflict. I. The information gathered by the CPT during its visits to the North Caucasian region in late February/early March and in April 2000 strongly indicated that many persons were physically ill-treated in a detention facility at Chernokozovo during the period December 1999 to early February 2000. Ever since the beginning of March 2000, the CPT has been urging the Russian authorities to carry out a thorough and independent inquiry into events at this detention facility during that period. To date, an inquiry of the kind requested by the CPT has not been carried out and the Russian authorities have now made it clear that they have no intention of organising such an inquiry. A particularly disturbing aspect of the Russian authorities' current position is their contention that no facilities intended for accommodating detainees were established by public authorities in the area of Chernokozovo during the period referred to by the CPT. It is an indisputable fact that a detention facility operated at Chernokozovo during the period December 1999 to early February 2000, prior to the formal setting up in that village of a pre-trial establishment (SIZO N° 2) by a Ministry of Justice Order dated 8 February 2000. The CPT's delegation interviewed many persons who stated that they had been held in a detention facility at Chernokozovo during that period. Numerous Russian officials (prosecutors, investigators, custodial staff) met by the delegation confirmed that the establishment designated as from 8 February 2000 as SIZO N° 2 had prior to that date been used as a detention facility. The CPT is in possession of a copy of the medical journal of the establishment covering the period 8 November 1999 to 12 February 2000, in which the day by day arrival of detainees (and any injuries they bore) was recorded; the staff who completed that journal referred to the establishment first as an “IVS” (temporary detention facility) and at a later stage as a “temporary reception and distribution centre”. The Russian authorities have themselves, in earlier correspondence, provided to the CPT written statements signed by officers attesting to the fact that they worked in the detention facility during the period December 1999 to early February 2000 as well as written statements signed by persons who certified that they were held at Chernokozovo during that period. The Russian authorities' contention that no detention facilities were established by public authorities at Chernokozovo during the period in question (and that, as a result, an inquiry of the kind requested can serve no purpose) is clearly untenable and constitutes a failure to cooperate with the CPT. ____________  The CPT reserves the right to publish that exchange of correspondence if this were to become appropriate.