The Daily Beast
Russian parliamentary accused of torture and beheading in rural lawsuit against Wagner group
ALEXEY DRUZHININ Kremlin-backed mercenaries who worked for the Wagner group could be tried for the very first time in Russian courts after an everyday team of human rights lawyers filed a case in Moscow accusing the militants of Torture and beheading of a man In a legal criminal complaint announced on behalf of the victim on Monday, Muhammad “Hamdi Bouta” Taha al-Abdullah, lawyers representing the victim’s brother, claims that six Russian citizens entering into a contract worked to secure a Russian-Syrian gas plant. was behind the assassination in 2017. The lawsuit is the first known attempt to fund someone linked to the top-secret network of secret operators, funded and run by close associates of President Vladimir Putin. Opponents of the dark money paramilitary outfit hope an attack by the courts – which they expect to take all the way to the European Court of Human Rights – will expose the scope to the abuse of the shadow forces used to end the military adventures of to hide the Kremlin all over the world. Advocates for the victim say Russian authorities will now be forced to flee after more than a year of stonewalling and evading the case, no matter what. “Hopefully, this will open the door to all the crimes that the Wagner group is not only in Syria,” said Mazen Darwish, one of several human rights activists who called for justice in the case and director general of the Syrian Center for media and freedom of expression, said. In a telephone interview with The Daily Beast on Saturday, Darwish said the case against the six paramilitary groups of the Wagner group is being filed under articles in Russian criminal law that prosecute someone involved in torture, serious bodily injury and murder, continued. “They can not say that it is merely a political issue or propaganda, because we are bringing this matter under Russian law before Russian courts. We’re going to Moscow, to their territory, to their courts and to their jurisdiction, “Darwish said. Allegations of the Wagner group’s involvement in the torture and murder of al-Abdullah, better known by his nicknames, Hamdi or Hamadi Bouta, first came to light in June 2017 when a two-minute video clip of the murder surfaced in an anonymous message on a Reddit subchannel that was popular with military geeks. not, just a link to a graphic violent video shot with a wobbly hand on a cell phone in which several Russian-speaking men dressed in desert military uniforms in turn beat a man who has since been identified as Bouta. Lawyers and human rights lawyers involved in the case in Moscow say the complaint is an important first step in prosecuting Russian mercenaries linked to the Wagner group for a number of war crimes involving not only Syria but also Libya and the Central African Republic. Several related businesses have reportedly been linked to a well-connected Kremlin insider and a one-time Russian intelligence official since at least 2017. The order submitted Friday in connection with Bouta’s case alleges that the Russian government effective control over the Russian private military contingent that killed Bouta during operations at the al-Shaer gas plant. Commonly known as the Wagner Group, the contingent is linked to a network of Russian enterprises funded by US and European authorities, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key player in Putin’s inner circle, known as ‘Putin’s chef’. Although the Wagner group has been involved in several violations of international law, including the promotion of a UN arms embargo in Libya, the Moscow lawsuit in Bouta’s case is the first time any official charge against the private security contingent has been heard in court. was brought. with an alleged war crime. Last month, the FBI placed Prigozhin on its Most Wanted list in connection with his alleged role in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. elections, rewarding him with $ 250,000 for information leading up to his arrest. The US government also sanctioned Prigozhin for his alleged ties to Russian mercenaries attached to the Wagner group. The lawsuit in Moscow revolves around four separate video clips depicting several Russian-speaking men who beat, beheaded and burned a badly mutilated man at the al-Shaer gas plant. central node in a million-dollar joint oil and gas deal concluded between the Syrian government, the General Petroleum Corporation and Str. oytransgaz, a Russian state-owned hydrocarbon engineering firm led by Gennady Timchenko, a longtime collaborator of Putin. Timchenko or Prigozhin are not explicitly mentioned in connection with the murder of Bouta. According to US authorities, Al-Shaer and several other nearby gas fields generated about $ 162 million in 2017, the same year Bouta died. Representatives of Stroytransgaz and Prigozhin’s parent company Concord Consulting and Management did not respond to requests for comment. made before lawyers representing Bouta’s family released the details of the court in Moscow on Monday. The first video was posted anonymously in June 2017 and three more were posted in November 2019 and started spreading widely on Russian social media platforms. part of the videos posted by open source investigators on Twitter, reporters with al-Jessr Pres s, a Paris-based media outlet covering Syria, published the very first report of Bouta’s assassination. A few days later, Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s only remaining independent newspapers, published a report citing Stanislav Dychko as one of several Russian citizens depicted in the video. The report also revealed that at least one of the Russian-speaking men in the video fought in the fighting region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine before traveling to Syria to work for a contingent attached to the Wagner group. Bouta was born in August 1986 in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor in a village not far from where one of his alleged assailants, Vlaidslav Apostol, died just months after hitting Bouta with a sledgehammer. Apostol’s family reportedly confirmed that he worked as a private security contractor in Syria and that he was one of hundreds of Russians killed during a US air strike in the northeastern province of Deir Ezzor. After his short time in the Syrian Arab army, Bouta went to work in the construction industry and worked mainly as a mason. He is married and has started a family. When the civil war began, he traveled to Lebanon to find construction work after the situation in Syria deteriorated and large parts of Deir Ezzor came under ISIS control, according to a report from Bouta’s last days that his family gave to lawyers. time in Lebanon, Bouta decided to return to his family in Deir Ezzor. On March 27, 2017, Bouta travels across the border from Lebanon to Syria at the Beirut-Damascus crossing with a group of young men from his town. Syrian authorities arrested Bouta as he crossed the border and handed himself over to members of the Syrian army. At this point, members of the Bouta group travel with Bouta’s brother-in-law, who was then in Lebanon, to have the Syrian army arrest Bouta. Bouta later came in contact with his brother-in-law. directly and told him that members of the Syrian Arab army had taken him to the military camp al-Draij, a well-known deployment hub for fighters of the Wagner group. Before he was killed, Bouta said Russian-speaking soldiers had pushed him and several others into custody at al-Draij to wage war in Homs to seize and protect oil and gas infrastructure. The Government of Syria controls the production and export of oil, gas and minerals. , and Syria’s General Petroleum Company draws up exploration and development strategies and oversees national subsidiaries, including the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC) and Syrian Gas Company (SGC). As in many other developing countries, Syria’s nationalized energy sector is highly dependent on external support from foreign companies for capital-intensive upstream investments in exploration and development. Stroytransgaz, or STG, the company led by Kremlin insider Timchenko, is one of the largest such investors, and in February it reached a $ 22 million production agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, according to The Syria Report, an online journal that follows the economic development in the country. Ilya Novikov, one of the Russian lawyers who filed the groundbreaking complaint, said in a written statement that he and his fellow councilor Petr Zaikin had decided to start the case after a claim for the Russian investigative committee, the country ‘s leading prosecutor, apparently collapsed. that Novaya Gazeta asked the investigative committee to investigate the murder, but the committee ignored the request. “This has forced us, as human rights defenders, to turn to the Russian investigative authorities,” Novikov said. “It is indeed a repetition of what happened 20 years ago, when coercive disappearances, torture and executions committed during the armed conflict in the North Caucasus were also not investigated.” Mazen Darwish, one of several human rights activists campaigning for justice in According to Bouta’s case and director general of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, the Russian authorities have about 40 days to respond to the initial court case. The case is being brought together by lawyers and advocates attached to Darwish’s organization, the Memorial Human. Rights Center in Moscow, and the International Federation for Human Rights in Paris. If for some reason the case does not continue in Moscow, Darwish said it is likely that he, Novikov and others will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. Prigozhin for alleged financial ties to the Internet troll accused of Russian interference in the US presidential election in 2016. However, it was unclear whether the case would continue after federal prosecutors working under the Trump administration filed charges against Prigozhin’s firm. Concord Consulting and Management in St. Petersburg in connection with the case. But a federal arrest warrant issued for Prigozhin in Washington, DC on Feb. 16 appears to be a renewed interest in the Department of Justice to hold Prigozhin accountable. Under a 2019 U.S. law known as the Caesar Syria Civil Protection Act, anyone involved in war crimes in Syria under Assad’s rule could be subject to sanctions. Although it is not clear whether US authorities will continue to impose further sanctions on Prigozhin, Timchenko or any of the other entities filed in Bouta’s reporting and lawsuit, the facts certainly suggest that US investigators in Washington will closely monitor the outcome. . by The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily membership of the beast: Beast Inside goes deeper into the stories that matter to you. Learn more.