Helsinki Group Suspects Secret Prisons In Chechnya
Chechen security forces (file photo) (RFE/RL)
In a new 37-page report titled "Unofficial Places of Detention in the Chechen Republic," the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights documents the existence of what it says are secret prisons in Russia's breakaway southern republic.
It alleges that the illegal prisons are operated by Chechen officials and Russian security forces and are used to obtain information and confessions through beatings and torture, and for extrajudicial executions.
The group says it has sent its report to Dick Marty, who is heading a probe into alleged secret CIA detention centers in member states of the Council of Europe.
The aftermath of a December 2002 Chechen resistance attack on the main government building in Grozny (epa)
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