Press Release

(legal justification of the court decision being unlawful)

The Issyk-Kul Oblast Court found Kamil Ruziev’s detention to be lawful.

The injured party in the case of the human rights defender is the State Committee for National Security, investigating its own case against Ruziev, which is a violation of the law.

In addition, the SCNS cannot deal with the case of Ruziev due to the fact that the criminal case does not fall under the jurisdiction of the SCNS.

Due to the fact that the case under Article 359 part 2, “Document Forgery” of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic is not a national security issue, which proves the fact of falsification of the case against the human rights activist because of his complaints against the SCNS.

On 19 June, the Issyk-Kul Oblast Court upheld the decision of a lower court (Karakol city court) on recognizing the detention of human rights activist Kamil Ruziev to be lawful. 

The only thing that has been changed is a preventive measure for the human rights activist — now instead of home arrest, Ruziev has a written recognizance not to leave. This means that in order to leave the city of Karakol, Issyk-Kul oblast, he should obtain permission from the investigator, prosecutor and judge.

This is the final decision on the lawfulness of detention, and it is not subject to appeal.

We consider the decision of the Issyk-Kul Oblast Court to be illegal and unfair.

Lawyers for the human rights activist Kamil Ruziev, Chinara Dzhakupbekova and Asantur Moldogaziev presented in court extensive evidence of the fact that the detention was unlawful.

Legal justification of why the detention is unlawful:

• The legislator in Article 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic presented an exhaustive list of reasons and grounds for detaining a person. Therefore, it should be assumed that detention can be “legal” only if one of the three grounds listed in Article 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic is present.

• Thus, in the detention protocol, the investigator recognized the basis for the detention of to be according to part 2 of paragraph 1 of Art. 98 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, namely, “if a person is caught while or directly after committing a crime or misconduct”.

• This “ground for detention” presented by the investigator is unreasonable, and its groundlessness is confirmed by the procedural documents provided to the court by the investigating authorities, such as:

- in the notice of suspicion of committing a crime, paragraph 4, - the time of committing the crime was determined by the prosecution as 3 March 2020, the detention was carried out on 29 May 2020. It follows from the meaning of the procedural documents that Ruziev K. was not caught at the scene of the crime, and he was not detained immediately after the commission of the crime, since the concept of “immediateness” according to Ozhegov’s dictionary is understood “immediately, without a spatial or time interval”, and in our case the spatial interval takes 86 days.

Regarding the argument of the prosecution that the identity of K.Ya. Ruziev was not established, the authorized body has the right to bring a person held accountable for a violation who does not have documents proving his identity, only in case when the detainee refuses to confirm his identity and provide information about his place of residence (part 2, article 311 of the Code of Violations of the Kyrgyz Republic).

Thus, the identity of K. Ruziev during the detention was already established, since the investigator during the detention of K.Ya. Ruziev already talked about him being allegedly suspected of forgery of documents. Thus, not a single investigator would charge the detainee with anything without having identified him.

The prosecutor’s office in court said that human rights activist Ruziev was detained for 48 hours due to the fact that he ignored the summons for interrogation to the SNSC building.

Regarding the arguments of the prosecution that K. Ruziev was presented with a summon

The summons, which were handed to K.Ya. Ruziev do not meet the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, which regulates the procedure for calling a person for interrogation - provided for by Art. 189 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, since the legislator clearly stated the requirement: “indicating in the summon the right to invite a lawyer” and “indicating in the summon the consequences of failure to appear without good reason”, and part 2 of Article 7 of the Criminal Procedure Code obliges the investigator to strictly observe the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Investigator N. Dosmatov recognized K.Ya. Ruziev’s non-appearance in the SD of the SNSC Office in Issyk-Kul oblast on 28 May 2020 as unjustified. At the same time he substantiated in his ruling the validity of the non-appearance of K.Ya. Ruziev due to the fact that "K.Ya. Ruziev was in the Karakol city court” and even listed a number of witnesses. 

The investigator’s indication that K. Ruziev was in court when he was supposed to come to the SD of the SNSC Office justifies the extremely disrespectful attitude of the investigator of the SD of the SNSC Office to the Karakol city court; if we rephrase it using colloquial terms, the statement sounded somewhat disparaging: “How come K. Ruziev was in court, when I, investigator of the SD of the SNSC Office, called him to come to my office?».

However, despite the disrespectful attitude of investigator N.E. Dosmatov to the Karakol city court, the court “respected” the SD of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast and by its decision of 31 May 2020, in the operative part of its decision on the selection of a preventive measure in respect of Ruziev K., in paragraph 5, contrary to the Constitution of the KR, and the law of the Kyrgyz Republic on the Prosecutor’s Office of the Kyrgyz Republic, provided the SNSC Office with “supervisory functions”, by assigning supervision over compliance with the restrictions on Ruziev K. to the investigating authorities of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast.

Also, the justification of the prosecution, indicated on page 2 paragraph 5 of the decision of the Karakol city court on the recognition of the lawfulness of the detention, is unreasonable, and refuted by the materials of pre-trial proceedings. The justification states that on 29 May 2020 at 2:52 p.m. a summon was presented to K.Ya. Ruziev calling him the SD of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast to provide him with a notice of suspicion of committing a crime. I believe it is impossible to call the suspect to provide him with a notice of suspicion of a crime on 29 May 2020, whereas the notification was issued two days later, 31 May 2020.

The above mentioned facts inevitably lead us to the only possible conclusion. Given that K. Ruziev was detained near the courthouse and was suing the SD of the SNSC Office, and investigator N.E. Dosmatov recognized this as a crime (since there were no other actions taken by K.Ya. Ruziev on 29 May 2020, the investigator stated in the protocol that K. Ruziev was caught at the scene of the crime immediately after the crime was committed, and detained K Ruziev so that the latter would not go to court, and would not sue the SD of the SNSC Office. Thus, this explains the fact that the date and time of the summons given to K.Ya. Ruziev by Dosmatov N.E., were the same as the date and time of the trials of K.Ya. Ruziev with the SD of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast.

Direct interest in the outcome of this pre-trial production of SD of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast:

In accordance with Article 65 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, an authorized official of the inquiry body, investigator, prosecutor, judge cannot participate in the proceedings if they:

are victims, persons responsible for compensation for material damage and (or) moral harm, or witnesses in this case;

To date, the defense has learned that Ruziev was previously in litigation with employees of the SD of the SNSC Office of the Issyk-Kul oblast, namely based on the following cases: No. AI-04-08\20SS, AI-04-09\20SS, AI-04-10\20SS, AI-04-11\20SS, AI-04-12\20SS.

Those litigations of K.Ya. Ruziev started under the following circumstances:

On 11 February 2015, K.Ya. Ruziev received an appeal from lawyer Zhyrkymbaev regarding the violation of the rights of prisoner Asylbek uulu by officers of the Special Rapid Response Detachment of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the oblast.

On 11-12 February 2015 due to the above mentioned circumstances, K.Ya. Ruziev initiated two monitoring visits to the prisoner in Pre-trial Detention Center-3 (SIZO-3) through the NCPT of the KR with the participation of the lawyer Zharkimbaev and invited expert V. Yzakova. As a results of both visits, the experts and lawyers were not allowed to enter the pre-trial detention center.

Ruziev twice filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office of the Issyk-Kul oblast regarding these actions of the staff of SIZO-3. As a result, he received the permission to come to SIZO-3 in Karakol.

After an act was drawn up to inspect the prisoner and allow Ruziev to exit the pre-trial detention center in the presence of the deputy chief and other employees, officers of the pre-trial detention center and DIA of the oblast organized an attack of K.Ya. Ruziev by a group of 50 unknown persons, who threatened him and obtained a written note from him stating that he had no complaints against the employees of the Department of Internal Affairs and SIZO-3 in Karakol, from which he managed to escape. Later, Ruziev was again threatened with reprisals against him, the result of which was the initiation of two criminal cases of torture in two pre-trial proceedings in accordance with Article 143, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic.

However, the threats didn’t stop there. Thus, on 10 and 12 June, as well as on 4 November the investigator of the police department of Karakol, Tokushev, exerted mental and physical pressure on K.Ya. Ruziev associated with the threats to kill him using a gun, twice in the building and once near the police department of Karakol, aiming to intimidate him.

The above mentioned actions in relation to K.Ya. Ruziev continued on. Thus, on 28 May 2020 K.Ya. Ruziev was detained and incriminated a forgery of a certificate in the building of the SCNS Office of the KR in the Issyk-Kul oblast.

Thus, the defense side considers unacceptable the participation of the SD of the SNSC Office in the Issyk-Kul oblast in the consideration of this pre-trial proceedings by virtue of Article 65 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, since the body itself as a whole is an interested party in the pre-trial proceedings.

The prosecutor himself admitted during the trial that Kamil Ruziev was detained and forcibly brought to be interrogated as a witness. The reason for his detention for 48 hours was the lack of Ruziev’s original passport. At the same time, the human rights activist had a copy of his passport with him, and his personality is well known to the investigators and prosecutors of Karakol, with whom Ruziev had been working for many years.

Unfair trial and illegal decision

Only after two days of being in a temporary detention center, in violation of all procedural rules, did Ruziev receive a notification that he was considered not a witness, but a suspect in the criminal case for forging documents.

Lawyer Chinara Dzhakupbekova proved in court that the summons of Ruziev as a witness were drawn up incorrectly. The rights of Ruziev were not indicated in the summons sent to him as a witness, the consequences in case of no-show were indicated, as well as his right to a lawyer.

There was not a single legitimate reason for the detention and retention of Ruziev for 48 hours, moreover, the absence of the original passport was certainly not a legitimate reason for that.

On the day of Ruziev’s detention, on 29 May 2020, the city court examined his complaint about the omission of the SCNS officers who ignored the threats of murder of a human rights activist by the former police investigator of the Department of Internal Affairs of Karakol, Tokushev. The investigators did not appear at this trial, and as soon as Ruziev left the court room, he was detained right at the courthouse.

Numerous violations during the arrest prove once again that the case against Ruziev was completely falsified with the aim of revenge and intimidation. Law enforcement officials want to do everything to make Ruziev stop his human rights activities.

The SCNS avenges Ruziev for his complaints against them. This is proved by the fact that the SCNS accused Ruziev of “Forgery of documents” (article 359 part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic) and is working on this case. However, it is not part of the direct responsibilities of the SCNS to consider such crimes, it is the jurisdiction of the police. It is obvious, that the 57-year-old human rights activist Ruziev is not a particularly dangerous criminal.

We understand that, despite all the evidence of the illegality of the detention, the judges were afraid to make a lawful decision in favor of Kamil Ruziev. After all, the SCNS is engaged in the case and not a single judge will take decisions against this body. We are deeply upset that despite all procedural violations and evidence, we do not have a guarantee of a fair trial.

After all, the SCNS acts as the injured party in this matter, therefore, they should not be engaged in their own case.

Taking into account the great desire of the SCNS employees of the Issyk-Kul oblast to put Ruziev in custody, as well as the constant pressure on witnesses exerted by the SCNS, our lawyers challenged the investigation to the prosecutor’s office of the Issyk-Kul oblast, so that an impartial body would deal with the case.

Thank you.

Should you have any questions or comments, please, contact:

Azat (son of the human rights activist Kamil Ruziev): + 996 554 23 11 67, ruziev25@gmail.com