In Kazakhstan, the President again received complaints of torture

The Kazakh lawyer, Anara Kusainova, appealed to the President Kasym-Zhomart Tokaev with a request to take personal control of the situation with her son, Tamerlan Erlanov, convicted of participating in an organized criminal group (OCG).

According to Kusainova at a press conference, her son was sentenced to 8 years in prison for participating in the OCG of Ruslan Ramazan, known in the criminal environment as “Shpeck”.

 Ruslan Ramazan and six of his accomplices were convicted on November 19, 2018. The defendants were accused of robberies, extortion, the creation of a criminal group and possession of weapons and drugs, an assault on the life of a law enforcement officer, inflicting grievous bodily harm and kidnapping. The court found guilty of all seven proved and sentenced them to various terms. Ruslan Ramazan received a sentence of 17 years in prison.

Among the convicted was 23-year-old Tamerlan Erlanov. According to his mother, her son was accused of participating in the robberies that took place in 2013, but at that time Tamerlan was still a schoolboy. Moreover, at that moment he lived in Astana.

 “Mr. President, my son did not live in Almaty until September 2015 and was not even passing through here. There is numerous evidence and testimony provided to the court. I want to draw your attention to the fact that for the period of the crimes in February 2013, my son and I were in Thailand. And in April 2013, he was at the European student mathematics conference EuroMath2013 in Sweden. I declare that my son was physically unable to commit two robberies, which he was charged with,” Kusainova emphasized.

 However, she noted that her son was detained on the night of May 30, 2017 (when Shpeck was detained).

 “Tamerlan just drove Ramazan home,” said Kusainova. “The fact is that Tamerlane’s father, 18 years ago, when he was still alive, was friends with Ramazan, but our son did not communicate with him. It was on that evening that law enforcement officers were preparing the detention of Ramazan. When Ramazan got out of my son’s car, shooting started. My son was detained and demanded that he testify that Ramadan was the first to start shooting. When my son refused, a criminal case was opened against him. They planted parts of a sawn-off shotgun and cartridges into his car and house, and then accused him of resistance during the detention.”

She also noted that law enforcement officials did not stop there. Trying to knock evidence from the guy, the police beat him and tortured him.

“My son was brutally tortured for three days. He nearly died and there is also evidence for this – the testimony of doctors. But both the Prosecutor General office and the courts insist that no illegal methods were used during the investigation. And this despite the fact that the Almaty Prosecutor’s office registered a criminal case of torture. These beatings led to a brain neoplasm, his entire spine was damaged. The case was dismissed due to the impossibility of identifying the persons who tortured Tamerlan, because he was tortured with a bag on his head, and he did not see their faces. Now we are preparing to consider the case in the appellate court. Dear Mr. President, please, take this case under your personal control. In consideration of the terms of the investigation, trial and examination in the Prosecutor General office, my son has been in custody for two years and nine months,” she said.

According to another lawyer, Ayman ​​Umarova, who is Erlanov’s defender, laws in Kazakhstan do not work.

“How can one condemn a person by seeing and realizing that he has been tortured? How could this evidence be admissible by the court if the judge herself saw that the person had been tortured? Here is a photo of Tamerlan Erlanov. He is covered with blood. This is not a collage; this is a real picture. But the most important question is why, despite all the chaos that the employees of the National Security Committee are doing, such cases go through court,” Umarova asked.