Award-winning journalist Yelena Milašina and lawyer Aleksandr Nemov were on their way to a controversial trial when masked assailants stopped their taxi and assaulted them.
MOSCOW Masked attackers assaulted an investigative reporter from Novaya Gazeta newspaper Jelena Milašinan and a lawyer Alexander Nemov In Russia, in North Caucasian Chechnya.
The journalist and the lawyer were on their way from the airport to a trial in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, when three cars stopped their taxi.
The attackers threatened the journalist and the lawyer with a gun, hit them with batons and kicked them.
Milašina suffered a brain injury from the abuse and had broken fingers on both hands. In addition, the attackers shaved her hair and poured green paint on her head.
Lawyer Nemov was also stabbed in the leg.
The attackers took Milašina and Nemov’s phones and destroyed the documents and technology they were carrying.
According to the human rights organization Memorial, the attackers threatened Nemov and Milašina specifically because of their work.
– You have been warned. Get out of here and don’t write anything, the attackers said, according to Memorial.
Milašina is a well-known journalist. He has researched, among other things, the large-scale violence against gays in Chechnya.
In 2009, she received Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award for exceptional activism, and in 2013, the US State Department’s International Women of Courage Award.
The Kremlin says that the president to Vladimir Putin has been told about the attack. Putin’s representative Dmitry Peskov said the case calls for vigorous action.
The verdict was read without a lawyer
Lawyer Nemov was to be represented at the trial held in Grozny Zarema Musayevabut Nemov was unable to attend the session due to his injuries.
Zarema Musajeva is a former federal judge Saidi Jangulbaeva wife. His son Abubakar and Ibragim Jangulbayev are human rights activists.
At the hearing, Musayeva was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for violence against the police and fraud.
Abubakar Jangulbayev previously worked as a lawyer for the human rights organization Committee Against Torture.
Ibragim Jangulbayev, on the other hand, is known to be the founder of the oppositional 1ADAT channel, which operated on the Telegram messaging service.
Chechen authorities forcibly took Musayeva from Nizhny Novgorod to Chechnya in January 2022.
The leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov accused Musayeva of attacking the police. Musayeva has denied the accusations.
AFP, Reuters