Nardaran Resident Says about Subtle Torture in Police

Yesterday, at the trial of the "Nardaran case" the testimony was given by the residents of the Nardaran village, convicted on charges of illegal possession of weapons.

Nadir Gadirov, Aliaga Gasimov, Raja Babayev, Agasalim Jebrailov and Zahid Zakiev were arrested shortly after the special operation in Nardaran on November 26, 2015. The investigation claimed they were seized weapons and ammunition stored in their homes. Under Article 228.1 (illegal possession of firearms), they got real prison terms of 2 to 3 years.

However, on 17 October at the court, they stated that they testified against themselves and the leader of the movement Muslim Unity under torture in the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDCOC) MIA. The witnesses refused of their testimony given during the preliminary investigation.

Zahid  Zakiev told the court the details of how he was tortured.

"If possible, I’d like to take off my shoes and show my toes. They pulled out my nails with pincers. Whoever did this was wearing a mask, so I could not see his face. For 14 days I was tortured in GDCOC. They (the police) pounced on me in a pack and beat me," Zakiev said.

The lawyer suggested looking at Zakiev’s toes. However, the judge said it was not the time of experiments and announced the closure of the meeting, appointing the following one on 19 October.

Note that later yesterday the Vice-President of the movement Muslim Unity Abbas Huseynov was returned to the courtroom.

Earlier, the judge removed him from the trial, because at the meeting on 14 October he called an employee of GDCOC Shrek, after which the verbal altercation between the accused and the police resulted in throwing shoes at each other.

Huseynov’s removal caused violent protests of believers, and they said that if he was not returned, they would interfere with the administration of the trial. -36C06--